All This Time
by insaneantics21
Summary: AU: Quinn enrolls at McKinley and quickly falls in love with Rachel but the blonde harbors a deep secret. *Click through for more detail*
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** All This Time [1/5]  
**Pairings/Characters:** Quinn/Puck, Rachel/Quinn, Rachel/Quinn/Puck friendship, implied Puck/Original Character  
Mentions past: Rachel/Finn, Rachel/Puck, Quinn/Others, Puck/Others  
Other Minor Characters: Russell & Judy Fabray, Rebekah Fabray Puckerman, New Directions, Rachel's dads - Stan & Alex Berry, other characters**  
Rating:** R  
**Length:** ~6,400/ ~30,000 (subject to change)  
**Summary: ****AU** Quinn Fabray comes to Lima, Ohio and enrolls at McKinley as a seventeen year old senior. She quickly befriends and falls in love with Rachel Berry but Quinn's deepest secret, shared with none other than Noah "Puck" Puckerman, has made her life almost impossible to live and she knows that she and Rachel can never be. However, when Rachel accidentally stumbles upon said secret it turns Quinn's life on its head and she finds herself breaking her own rules of survival to be by Rachel's side.  
**Warnings:** Minor drug use, scenes involving war and bodily harm, character death.  
**Author's Note #1:** I hit a brick wall with this so many times I can't even count them. But I persevered, thanks in part to the encouragement of **madndizzee** who is my constant poker and motivates me to get shit done. Title stolen from All This Time by OneRepublic.  
**Author's Note #2:** This story moves very, very quickly. It's very fast paced and there is a lot of stuff crammed into each part. Most of it is me hating to write filler. Don't say I didn't warn you.

* * *

**-Part I-**

**August 2011  
Lima, Ohio**

Another new year, another new high school. Quinn Fabray was enrolled as a seventeen year old high school senior, as per normal. She was a few days behind all of the other students but she'd had other things to do before she started school again. She straightened out her The Who t-shirt and smoothed out her worn out jeans and smiled at her once white Chuck Taylors that she had decorated and colored. She went through the routine of going to the guidance counselor's office and getting her schedule and her locker combination. Each high school was always the same. The social hierarchy was the same. The teachers were the same. The students were the same.

Quinn walked through the crowded hallway to her locker and spun the dial to get it open. The lock stuck and she growled and tried again and again.

"That one always sticks," a voice said. "I had it last year."

Quinn snapped her head to the right to find the source of the voice and she stepped back. A short brunette wearing a raincoat and holding a pink binder and a few notebooks was staring up at her with a smile.

"Rachel Berry," the girl said. "President of McKinley High's glee club and resident slushie target."

Rachel Berry shifted her books to one arm and stuck out her hand and Quinn took it.

"Quinn Fabray," she said with a smile as she winced a little at Rachel's firm grip. "New student."

"I gathered. If you hold my books for a moment I can unlock your locker."

"Yeah, thanks."

Quinn took the books from the short brunette and Rachel put in the combination and jerked the locker open. The door rattled and Quinn smiled and handed the brunette's books back to her. The smile she received in return could've rivaled stadium lights.

"So, Quinn Fabray, as president of the glee club I am extending an offer to you to audition if you're interested. Can you sing?"

Quinn shrugged. "Yeah."

"What about dance? Do you have any dance training?"

"Yeah, I've been a cheerleader if that helps any."

"Oh…" Rachel's smile dropped from her face. "I suppose you'll be joining the Cheerios then."

"Cheerios?" Quinn stuffed her backpack into her locker and pulled out a few notebooks before shutting it again.

"The cheerleading squad. If you let it be known you were a cheerleader and you have dance training then the odds that Coach Sylvester will recruit you are quite high."

"I'm guessing they're more of a dance team than an actual cheerleading squad?"

Rachel nodded.

"Then I have no interest. Cheerleading used to be about being encouraging. If I wanted to dance like a whore then I'd go find a strip club."

Quinn almost cursed herself for saying too much but there was a flicker of an oblivious smile on Rachel's face. "Glee club meets this afternoon at three-thirty."

"I guess I'll give it a shot."

"Wonderful! What's your first class?"

Quinn pulled her schedule out of her pocket. "Spanish with Schuester."

"Mr. Schuester is our glee club adviser! Although he is determined to destroy my career as a future Broadway star, he is a fairly good Spanish teacher. I would offer to walk you but there's a chance that I'll receive a slushie facial on the way and I wouldn't want to subject you to that on your first day."

"A slushie what?"

"The jocks go to the 7-11 down the street and purchase large cups of slushie, cherry, blue raspberry, or grape, and toss it on students such as myself who they believe are beneath them."

Quinn had been to several different high schools in several different places and each one had their signature torture methods. Some would put dead mice in people's lockers, others were famous for swirlies, others were fond of running kids up the flagpole. A slushie facial, though? That was new.

"That's…creative." Quinn started walking; Rachel followed along and continued talking, obviously forgetting that she had every intention of protecting the blonde.

"I'm a favorite target now that my ex-boyfriend has decided he's a scared little boy and values his reputation over letting his friends know that we're an item."

"Sounds kind of like an ass."

"Finn? I suppose. He's simply influenced by peer pressure. It's for the best. I need someone who can keep up with me intellectually and vocally and isn't afraid to admit who they are. Also, as a senior I need someone that is going to be willing to support my budding career in New York City and I'm not sure he's up to the task."

Quinn saw him coming before Rachel did. A large jock with a large cup. Rachel gasped just as the boy reared back to toss the large cup of blue slush. Quinn rolled her eyes and simply snatched the cup out of the jock's hand before he could lurch forward.

"Thanks," she said with a smile. She handed the slushie to Rachel and leaned in to the bulky young man. "I'm new around here," she said with a scowl, "and I don't take shit from anyone and I'm not afraid of you. At all. I don't get mad, I get even. So why don't you and your tiny brain run along and go to basic math, okay?"

The jock (whose jacket said 'Karofsky') opened and closed his mouth a few times. Quinn smirked and took Rachel's arm and led her down the hallway.

"Quinn, I'm not sure you understand how things work…"

"No, I do understand. I probably understand better than you. You stand up to them and you keep standing up to them and they'll back down when they get that you can't be broken. Don't let them walk all over you."

Rachel nodded again and looked at the slushie in her hands. "What do I do with this?"

Quinn shrugged. "Drink it or toss it."

"I'm not really a fan of blue raspberry. Not to mention these drinks are loaded with empty calories which aren't conducive to a properly balanced and nutritional diet."

Quinn gestured to a nearby trashcan and Rachel dropped the slushie into it and led the way to Mr. Schuester's classroom. Quinn noticed the girl walking with a little extra bounce in her step after the almost-attack and rescue and with a little more brightness in her eyes as she looked up at her. Quinn blushed a little and nudged the short brunette who responded with a giggle. The blonde was relieved to have made a connection that quickly, it always made the high school experience a little easier.

Once in the classroom Rachel took the seat next to Quinn at one of the desks and displayed her Spanish book in between the pair. Quinn glanced over the open pages and at the notebook Rachel also displayed, the page filled even in the margins.

"I probably won't need it," Quinn said. "I'm fluent."

"Why are you taking it?"

"Same reason I'm taking any other class. It's something to do. French and German were full; I'm fluent in those, too. And Italian…and a little Dutch, enough to get by."

Rachel blinked. "You're joking."

"Nope. I've had a lot of time on my hands."

"¡Hola clase!" the young teacher came in with his briefcase.

"Hola, Señor Schuester!" Rachel answered with enthusiasm. Quinn smiled.

Even though it was an advanced level Spanish class, Rachel was still unable to roll her "r's", Quinn noticed. The brunette took fantastic notes but when it came to verbalizing, unlike English, her Spanish needed work.

"I'm tutoring you," Quinn said when class finished. "Seriously, you're smart and you can write it all day but you suck at speaking it."

"Mr. Schuester said I've gotten better…" Rachel grabbed her books and the pair was headed to the door when Mr. Schuester stopped them.

"Rachel, can I see you for a second?" Mr. Schuester pulled the brunette to the front of the class. Quinn followed.

"I know, Mr. Schue, I need to work on verbalizing."

"Some people just can't pick it up, it's fine," he said. "I wanted to see if you had any new ideas for glee club."

"Mr. Schuester, I have an entire catalog of songs I believe would be appropriate. This is Quinn Fabray, by the way!" Rachel grabbed onto Quinn's arm and pulled her forward. "I think I've convinced her to audition for glee club."

"Fantastic! Nice to meet you, Quinn."

"Mucho gusto, Señor Schuester," Quinn said with a smile.

"Muy bueno, Quinn. How long have you been speaking Spanish?"

Quinn smirked. "A while."

"Well, I would very much like it if you did join glee club, Quinn."

"I've also offered to tutor Rachel in her spoken Spanish."

"Wonderful! Let me write you guys some passes so you're not late to your next class, okay?"

Quinn smiled and nodded. Her next class was AP European history, Rachel's was chemistry. Quinn sat in the back of the classroom and pulled a gold ball about the size of a quarter out of her pocket and tossed it at the ceiling. She didn't listen to a word the old man teacher said until she was called on.

"Ms. Fabray! Tell us about Hitler's invasion of Poland."

"September first through October sixth, 1939," Quinn said, still tossing the ball in the air. "It was the first major action of World War II. There were over sixty-six thousand Polish killed, over one-hundred-thirty thousand wounded, and almost seven-hundred thousand captured. There were several German-staged incidents that made it look like the Germans were acting in self defense. The first act of regular war was at four-forty in the morning on the town of Wieluń by the German Luftwaffe. Almost thirteen hundred were killed, most of them civilians." Quinn caught the ball one last time and looked up at the teacher who looked almost furious. "Do you want me to continue or do you want to teach the lesson?"

"Very good, Ms. Fabray," the teacher growled. He went on with his lesson and Quinn started tossing the ball again.

In AP Calculus she completed the work the teacher asked of her, in AP Chemistry she filled out the formulas and tossed her ball some more while the teacher rambled on about balancing equations. Quinn met Rachel in the cafeteria for lunch and went through the line with the girl who curled her nose at almost everything that was offered. Another thing about all high schools, they all had the same thing in the cafeteria. Quinn grabbed a burger and fries and a can of Diet Coke and joined Rachel and her salad at a table with a few other kids.

"Quinn, these are some of the other glee clubbers." Rachel pointed to each person around the table and Quinn nodded at each one. "Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, and Artie."

"Nice to meet you guys."

"So how good are you?" Mercedes asked. "Rachel told us you could sing."

"I guess I'm okay. I've never done glee club before."

It was true. Out of all of the activities at all the high schools Quinn had been at she'd actually never done choir. She'd done band, cheerleading, dance team, color guard, drama, and every single academic club anyone could think of. She'd done it all. They didn't need to know that, though. She cracked open her can of soda and arched an eyebrow at Rachel picking off all of the cheese on her salad.

"Look, Quinn," Mercedes said, "we're glad to get a new member and whatever but I've been at this for three years and I still can't get a good solo," the girl scowled while looking at Rachel, "so don't come up all in here tryin' to knock me down."

Quinn actually had to laugh at that. Rachel sighed and continued picking the offending cheese off of the bed of lettuce.

"Whatever," Quinn said, "I don't care about your solos and I'm just looking for something to do. And you don't have to be a bitch, just so you know."

Mercedes squeaked and Rachel grinned.

Quinn's next class was AP Literature where they were reading _War & Peace_ she sighed and asked the teacher if she could test out of the unit. The woman arched her eyebrow at her and Quinn started reciting the plot in vivid detail, the teacher's jaw remained slightly open until Quinn finished.

"If there's another book you'd like to read, Ms. Fabray…"

Quinn shrugged and pulled the ball out of her pocket and tossed it in the air. "Not really. I've probably read everything on your list."

"Why are you in this class, Ms. Fabray?"

Quinn smiled. "Something to pass the time."

After literature was home economics, Rachel met Quinn at the door and literally bounced to their work station. The teacher handed out the assignment, Rachel eagerly grabbed up the recipe and started scrambling around the kitchen grabbing ingredients for pancakes. Quinn groaned when the brunette looked confused at the bowls of salt and sugar she had set out. She knew this was going to be a disaster. Her hunch was right when Rachel then proceeded to somehow manage to set their stove on fire.

"Rachel!" Quinn squealed when she pulled the fire extinguisher from the wall and sprayed the stove. "Who the hell taught you to put the stove on high for pancakes?"

"My family is fully committed to take out! We don't cook!"

"Obviously!"

By the time the fire was contained both Rachel and Quinn were covered in pancake batter, fire extinguishing foam, and the teacher was simply shaking her head. Quinn guessed that Rachel setting things on fire wasn't exactly a rare occurrence in the classroom. They cleaned up their station and went to the locker rooms to shower, Rachel brought her emergency bag with extra clothes and offered Quinn shorts and a t-shirt and the blonde smiled.

"Thanks," Quinn said. "I'm teaching you how to cook, by the way."

"How do you plan on tutoring me in Spanish, cooking, and keeping up with AP classes?"

"The AP classes are going to be the easy part."

Quinn stripped her jeans off and her gold ball fell out of the pocket and rolled to Rachel's feet. The brunette bent down to pick it up. Quinn shrieked.

"No! Don't touch that!"

Rachel jumped back and Quinn snatched up the ball and tucked it in with her clothes, ensuring it wasn't going anywhere.

"Sorry," the blonde mumbled. "It's just…really important. Family heirloom. I shouldn't carry it with me but I'm just afraid it'll fall into the wrong hands or something."

"It's very interesting."

"Yeah, you could say that." Quinn stripped off her shirt and tossed it onto the pile of her jeans. Rachel's jaw dropped a little. "Oh…sorry," Quinn grabbed her shirt and covered her front. "Sorry if that made you uncomfortable or whatever. I'm just used to it."

"No it's just…you've got quite a few scars…and the tattoo. And…well I can't deny that your figure…you're rather attractive."

Quinn tossed her shirt back on her jeans. "I guess," she shrugged. She grabbed a towel from one of the shelves and followed the brunette to the showers. Rachel stepped into the first stall, Quinn into the second.

"Do you mind me asking…about them?" Rachel said over the running water. "About the scars?"

Quinn chuckled. "You wouldn't believe me."

"Tell me about the one on the left side of your ribcage."

Quinn looked down and ran her fingers over the large scar marring her skin. "Like I said," Quinn sighed, "you wouldn't believe me."

...

_**December 7, 1941  
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii**_

_"Gloria, I'm going for a run," Quinn said. "Back later."_

_Gloria, Quinn's roommate, groaned incoherently and rolled over in her bed signaling she didn't really care. Quinn just laughed, stretched and pulled her hair up in a bun and headed out the door of their small on-base cabin. She ran along the beach and passed a few soldiers out on their morning jogs, she smiled flirtatiously at them and they all turned to watch her run by. Quinn stopped in the harbor like she always did and looked out at the ships resting peacefully in the water. The sunlight was shimmering off the ocean and the harbor was stirring a little with soldiers getting ready for their day's work. Hawaii was one of her favorite places she'd been, especially for work. It was peaceful and calm and absolutely beautiful._

_Quinn caught her breath and turned to go back to her house when she heard it. She heard the low buzz and looked back out onto the harbor and she saw them. Dozens of planes heading right toward the harbor. Right toward her._

_"Oh God…" she gasped. She turned to run but only made it a few steps before all hell broke loose. The first explosion almost knocked her out. Her head was buzzing and her ears were ringing when she looked up from where she'd landed on the ground. She got up to start running again when the planes started passing overhead. There were more explosions and shrapnel flying and Quinn turned back to look at the harbor. What she saw absolutely horrified her._

_The peaceful ships were no longer peaceful. There was smoke and fire everywhere. The roar of the planes was joined by roar of the soldiers. Quinn cried out after another explosion when something hit her ribcage and she looked down to see a piece of metal sticking out of her shirt. She groaned at the dull pain and pulled the metal out and tossed it on the ground._

_"Nurse!" one of the soldiers ran up to her and she covered the tear in her shirt. "Go get the others! Get to the hospital!"_

_Quinn nodded and took off running. The pain in her ribcage started subsiding. By the time she got to the hospital with the rest of the nurses in tow it was nothing but a scar._

_...  
_

"Quinn! How long are you going to be in there?" Rachel called.

Quinn blinked a few times and looked around. "Sorry, be out in a second." She rinsed the pancake batter from her hair and shut off the water. She grabbed a towel and stepped out of her shower stall with it wrapped around her chest.

"So you're not going to tell me anything?"

"I might someday," Quinn said with a smile.

"Well at least tell me something about yourself!"

Quinn shrugged. "My parents disowned me when I got pregnant at sixteen. I live alone."

"Oh."

"Too much?"

Quinn turned around, back to Rachel, and dropped her towel down around her waist and grabbed her bra.

"No," Rachel said. "I was just expecting something along the lines of your favorite color. Perhaps your favorite musical group."

"Oh…blue. And The Beatles."

"It's a very interesting tattoo you have."

"It's for my daughter," Quinn blurted out. She hooked her bra and grabbed her underwear and slipped them on under the towel. She dropped the towel and reached for the shorts Rachel had given her.

"You gave her up for adoption?"

Quinn pulled the shorts on and looked down at the small script "R" with 7211861 encircling it over her heart. "She died. I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm so sorry, Quinn."

There was a hand on her bare shoulder and Quinn jumped a little bit. The blonde turned around quickly and Rachel's eyes dropped to the tattoo on her chest and then back up.

"You're very different."

Quinn smiled. "You have no idea."

"I'd like to find out. You're very intriguing. Do you mind me asking where you're living?"

"I've got a place," Quinn said. She shrugged away and grabbed Rachel's t-shirt. She looked down at the logo when it was smoothed over her body. "_Wicked_?"

"Yes, have you heard of it?"

"I've seen it. Idina was amazing."

Rachel gasped. "You saw…the original?"

Quinn smiled. "Yeah."

"I demand that you come to my house this evening and recall every single moment!"

"Uh…that depends on the food situation."

"Take-out. It's Thai night."

"Deal. And I'm going to teach you to roll your "r's"."

Quinn caught the last half hour of her last class, health, before glee club practice. Rachel met her outside the choir room door and showed her inside. Aside from the glee clubbers she met at lunch there were two cheerleaders and three big guys she assumed were jocks sitting up on the risers.

"Quinn, this is the rest of the glee club. There's Santana and Brittany," Rachel pointed to the two cheerleaders. "And Mike, Matt, and…Finn."  
Finn's head dropped at the mention of his name and he scratched the back of his neck.

"That's the jackass that dumped you because he thinks he's better than you, right?" Quinn said loud enough to cause everyone in the room to look at her.

Rachel turned bright red.

"I'm not impressed," Quinn said with a shrug.

Finn furrowed his eyebrows and growled.

"Does anyone know where Noah is?" Rachel asked. There was a collective murmured no. Rachel shrugged and pulled Quinn to a seat.

"Who's Noah?" The familiar name filled Quinn's mouth like cotton.

"He moved here a few years ago," Rachel said. "He's known for being quite the womanizer." Rachel blushed and looked down at her sheet music. "What will you sing for your audition piece? Although anyone who auditions makes it, Mr. Schuester insists upon auditions to assess your vocal abilities."

Quinn shrugged. "I'll think of something."

Rachel was right, Mr. Schuester demanded that Quinn audition in front of the rest of the glee club members. The blonde shrugged and dropped to the piano bench and thought for a second before smiling and finding the right key. She launched into a slow acoustic version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (which she still insisted that she originated when she was playing in a hotel lobby for tips and that damn movie cover totally ripped her off). She glanced up at Rachel and grinned a little.

Quinn's concentration was broken by the door to the choir room opening and when she saw who was standing in it she completely froze.

"Puck?" she squeaked.

"Quinn…"

"You two know each other?" Mr. Schuster asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"Excuse me for a moment." Quinn stood and stormed toward the door, she grabbed Puck's forearm and dragged him back out the way he came. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I should ask you the same damn question! I've been here for three years, where the hell have you been?"

"None of your business!"

"So what now?"

"What now? You leave, that's what!" Quinn growled.

"Me? I was here first!"

"You hate school."

"Yeah well, a lot of shit has happened since the last time I was in one so I figured I should catch up and plus, there is _so much_ tail here. Chicks are so much more willing to give it up than they used to be."

"You're disgusting. Look…we just tell everyone we went to school together before you moved from…where were you?"

"Records say Iowa."

"Fine. We went to school together in Iowa."

"Works for me. Anyone know anything already?"

"Rachel already knows about _her_ but not that she was yours. But obviously no one knows about _us_. So keep your trap shut."

"Got it."

Quinn took a deep breath and opened the door to the choir room. The loud buzz of voices immediately went silent when she and Puck stepped back into the room.

"Sorry. Just catching up," Quinn said with a smile. "Mr. Schuester would you like me to finish?"

"No, Quinn, that's fine. You did good, very good!"

Quinn shrugged and dropped down next to Rachel, Puck went up to the top of the risers and sat next to Finn. Quinn could feel his eyes lingering on her and she scooted a little closer to Rachel.

Rachel's house was nice. Very nice. The living room was about the size of the filthy apartment she'd found to live in. Rachel gave her a grand tour and put Quinn's clothes in the laundry to get out the dried pancake batter. The brunette led her up the stairs and to her room, it smelled like strawberries. Quinn immediately dropped to the bed and motioned for Rachel to sit in front of her.

"Rolling your 'r's isn't that hard," Quinn said. "It's all in the tongue."

"I've been trying for four years. It's not happening."

"You need to relax. If you focus on it then you won't do it. Think about something else and try it."

Rachel took a deep breath. She tried. Quinn sighed when she failed miserably.

"You're not relaxing!"

"Quinn, when I'm told to relax it only furthers the tension due to the fact that I'm focusing too much on relaxing."

"What relaxes you?"

"Singing," Rachel answered matter-of-factly.

"No it doesn't. You're too passionate about that, it's in your eyes. Something else."

Rachel blinked a few times. "I'm not sure."

"We'll find something."

Rachel nodded. Quinn pulled out her homework and started filling in equations and writing summaries and pointing at mistakes Rachel made on her trigonometry homework. Quinn met Rachel's two dads and vaguely answered questions about her past over dinner. Each question pushed her further and further to lie and her brain was digging up things she didn't want to think about. Ever.

...

_**July 1853  
Savannah, Georgia**_

_Quinn ran through the cotton fields where her Daddy's "workers" (as he called them; Quinn had heard others call them 'slaves' and other names her mother said she ought not to repeat) were tending the plants and the foreman was yelling. Quinn had just turned ten and she was supposed to be inside with her mother and her sister sewing or drinking tea or something other than running through the plants and saying hello to the workers but those things weren't fun._

_"Hi!" she squealed as she ran by each man._

_"Good day to you, Little Miss Quinn," each one said with a smile.  
Quinn ran until she hit the edge of the forest. She never dared go in but she always longed to. Her father said she wasn't allowed because of the wild animals so she just watched for a few minutes then turned back to the fields and started running again._

_When Quinn tired herself out from running through the fields she would make her way back to the house, a very large house that she loved more than anything because it was home. Her Daddy greeted her on the big front porch and she jumped into his arms._

_"Where have you been my little Quinnie?"_

_"Playing," she said with a smile. "Playing in the fields!"_

_"Your mother has been worried. You should go in and get cleaned up. I think there might be a tray of cookies in the kitchen if you're good."_

_Quinn gasped and scrambled out of her father's arms to go upstairs to her bedroom where Hazel was straightening up the sheets on her bed. The dark-skinned woman helped Quinn wash and change into a new dress and sent her on her way to the kitchen. With a sugar cookie in hand she bounced into the parlor and was scolded by her mother and made to read out of the family Bible for half an hour. She got through it and her mother nodded approvingly and handed her a few quilt patches for her to start stitching._

_...  
_

"Quinn?"

Quinn's mind snapped back to the present when she heard her name.

"Quinn, Daddy asked how old you are."

Rachel gestured to her dark-skinned father, Alex, and he smiled.

Quinn bit her tongue to keep from blurting out her immediate response.

"Seventeen," she said with a smile.

The man smiled. "What kinds of things do you do? Any hobbies?"

Quinn shrugged. "A little of everything. Apparently right now it's glee club."

"Daddy is into genealogy," Rachel said. "He can trace anyone's family history."

Alex nodded. "What do you know about your history?"

"Uh…not much. I know the family has been here a while; at least a few generations before the civil war."

"Fabray is an Irish name," he said. "If you're ever interested I could help you find out more."

"Thank you," Quinn said with a smile that masked her panic. "But I'm not really that interested. I'm not close with my family."

Alex smiled and nodded.

Quinn found herself at Rachel's almost every evening for dinner. Alex and Rachel's other dad, Stan, became accustomed to setting out a fourth plate. Quinn didn't object. It was one less thing she had to pay for. The money she'd been saving was running out and she knew she had to save whatever she could.

She got closer and closer to Rachel and she noticed Puck watching her more and more. She avoided him and the questions at all cost. He especially watched her when she would be enamored with the gold ball she kept with her. She would always smirk at him and toss it in the air once more just to watch him wince. August turned into September, Quinn barely noticed. She didn't pay attention to days or weeks or months anymore. All she could pay attention to now was Rachel.

The brunette still couldn't roll her "r's" but the blonde had been successful in teaching Rachel how to cook. Granted, she'd assisted her greatly for each meal the brunette cooked but nothing had been set on fire and everything was edible. Rachel's dads sincerely offered for Quinn to move in with them several times but each time the blonde politely thanked and denied them.

Rachel was burying herself further into Quinn's heart. It was good because Quinn was very ready for someone to be with but at the same time, she knew she'd have to break Rachel's heart eventually and she'd grown rather fond of the girl. Rachel would throw flirty glances and touches and Quinn heard through the grapevine that she'd turned down Finn's recent attempts at re-sparking their relationship.

September turned into October and Rachel insisted Quinn join her for a Halloween horror movie marathon. Quinn accepted despite the fact that she knew Rachel was easily startled and any kind of horror movie wasn't going to be a good idea for the brunette to watch.

Quinn's prediction was right, Rachel ended up halfway on top of the blonde during _Scream_. Quinn didn't complain, she just wrapped her arms around the brunette's shoulders. Rachel stayed where she was and buried her face into Quinn's neck for the rest of the movie.

"I think we should watch something a little more fluffy," Quinn said when the movie ended. "You'll have nightmares if we keep this up."

"I-I will not! We should watch _Friday the 13th_."

"Rachel, seriously? You got nightmares from _Goosebumps_."

"I was ten! And I told you that with the promise that you'd never make fun of me for it!"

Quinn gave a playful smile and hugged Rachel closer to her and the brunette let out a content sigh. She nuzzled Quinn's neck and the blonde's breath hitched in her throat when Rachel's lips grazed the pale skin and her tongue darted out to taste.

"Rachel…"

Rachel pulled back quickly and scrambled away from Quinn. She clasped her hands in her lap and looked down at them. "I'm sorry," the brunette mumbled.

"Don't be. I just didn't know…your dads are upstairs."

"Quinn, my dads are gay. I'm fairly certain they won't mind if they find me kissing a girl."

Quinn gave a soft smile before gently cupping Rachel's face and drawing her in. The brunette moved back closer to Quinn and wrapped one hand around the back of her neck and settled the other on her hip. Quinn made the first move and gently brushed her lips against Rachel's and she sucked in the sigh that escaped the girl's lips. She pressed a simple kiss to Rachel's lips and felt all tension leave Rachel's body.

Quinn had kissed a lot of people in her life and each one had always felt a little different than the last. Boys and girls were obviously different from each other and each boy was different from the rest as was each girl. There was one boy she'd kissed that made her heart want to burst out of her chest and she had most definitely been in love with him. She'd loved him with her whole heart once. And when she felt it again when Rachel pressed her lips more firmly against her own and she felt a tongue touch her lips, Quinn panicked. She pulled back and Rachel whimpered and looked up at her, rejection plaguing her eyes.

"Quinn?"

"I…"

"Quinn, are you…I'm sorry, I should've asked…"

"No…it's not you."

Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. "Did you not enjoy it?"

Quinn took a deep breath. "I did like it. I…I like _you_. I like you a lot, Rachel and that's the problem."

"Well why would that be a problem? I see no issue."

"C-college," Quinn sputtered. "We're seniors, we're going off to college." The excuse she always used when she played the role of high school student. Only this time it was less elegant than it usually was.

"So? Not until the summer. Assuming all goes well in the course of our relationship we could attend the same university or at least live in the same area."

Quinn had heard that argument several times. Each time she was able to convince the other party that they were wrong and it wouldn't work out. This time…this time she couldn't.

"Yeah…you're right. You're totally right." Quinn smiled. "Where were we?"

Rachel's fingers trailed up and the blonde shivered a little when the soft pads of Rachel's fingertips ran over a long scar on her shoulder. Rachel's fingers sparked sensations on Quinn's skin that tore her away from the present and sent her to places far away in both time and location.

...

_**November 21, 1916  
On board the **_**HMHS Britannic**

_Quinn had been in London when the First World War was declared. Weighing her options of getting the hell out or doing just as she had done several years previously she finally decided on the latter. She immediately sought out a small nursing school and it didn't take much to get enrolled since she was excellent at knowing her way around the formal paperwork. The field of medicine had changed drastically, she noticed. Still, she passed through her courses with flying colors because of what little still-useful background knowledge she had. Immediately after she passed she offered her services to the Royal Military. She was put on board the newly requisitioned ship _HMHS Britannic_, sister ship to the still famous _RMS Titanic_._

_She was certain that this could be the safest job to have in the war, simply transporting wounded military men back to Britain from mainland Europe. They were free of patients at the moment and were heading to Lemnos. Quinn and a friend she had made, Violet, were making their rounds on the ship to change bed sheets and tidy up the rooms for the patients they would be picking up. Violet was telling Quinn of her voyage on _Titanic_ and they'd just moved to folding down the sheets on another bed when the ship lurched, sending both women to the floor._

_Orders were shouted to get everyone to the main deck and start loading lifeboats. After assuring Violet that she would be okay, Quinn took to darting through the corridors to check for anyone that might not have heard. Once assured that all of the rooms were clear, Quinn hurried up to the main deck and was ushered into a lifeboat. She immediately found Violet, the woman was in somewhat of a trance. Quinn wrapped an arm around her as their boat was lowered._

_Quinn heard the shrieks from the rear of the ship and mistakenly turned her head to find the source. The propellers of the ship had risen out of the water and the lifeboat that had been lowered right before hers collided with the still spinning propellers. And theirs was following. Quinn watched the boat get dashed to bits and pieces of wood and metal came hurdling toward them. A piece of metal flew by and sliced open her shoulder. Quinn shrieked and immediately grabbed onto the deep wound. The occupants of her boat started panicking. Violet snapped out of her trance and before Quinn could stop her, the woman jumped overboard. Quinn followed._

_The water was salty and it stung her eyes and burned the fast closing wound but she willed herself to keep her eyes open as she searched for Violet. The woman was kicking to try and get to the surface but her head collided with the keel of the ship. Quinn tried to swim to her but felt herself being pulled away by the currents of the propeller. She swam hard against them until the suction stopped and exhausted, she let herself float to the surface of the water. She was pulled out and put into a lifeboat._

_"Violet," she murmured to the steward. "Violet…"_

_...  
_

_The steward seemed to understand as he peered over the edge of the boat. A stewardess wrapped Quinn in a blanket and the blonde trembled with the cold. She watched two men pull Violet into the boat and bundle her in blankets and Quinn sighed and gripped tightly to the now scar on her shoulder._

Quinn ran her hand up Rachel's side and let herself fall a little deeper into the emotion flooding her body. She could work on moving on later. And Rachel was a really good kisser, so that was a plus. Quinn had gone through the motions of relationships and breakups several times, Rachel couldn't be any different. Like all the others in her life, it would have its season and then it would have to end. She was just putting it off a little, she assured herself.


	2. Chapter 2

**-Part II-**

The next Monday, Quinn found herself being dragged through the hallway by Puck after she and Rachel went their separate ways from the brunette's locker. She had been in the process of leaving a nicely visible bruise on Rachel's neck when Puck interrupted them.

"Dude, what the hell are you doing?" Puck growled after he slammed the classroom door shut.

"I'm dating Rachel, what's it look like?"

"I saw the way you looked at her, Quinn! You used to look at me that way."

"Puck…"

"Q, seriously, you know this is dangerous shit. You're leading her on. Berry is like…when she wants something she doesn't let up. You can tell her it's over and she'll keep coming back to you. I know, trust me."

Quinn clenched her jaw and growled. "You?"

"I'm a stud. Everyone wants me. We didn't go all the way or anything, she wouldn't even let me touch her boobs."

Quinn smirked and smiled at the memories of the weekend that were still floating around in her brain. "I guess I'm one up on you then."

Puck shrugged. "I still got your v-card."

"That is a disgusting term."

"Listen…just be careful with her. She'll fall for you and she'll fall really hard."

"Puck, I can't just go on without being with people. Believe it or not, girls have needs, too. And don't ask, you don't have a chance."

Puck smirked. "That's what you said last time."

"Yeah, well, last time I was tripping on LSD and had no idea what I was doing."

"Woodstock was pretty fun, though. You gotta admit."

...

_**August 1969  
White Lake, New York**_

_The sixties changed everything, Quinn noticed. She found herself in New York looking at a poster for a huge free concert and she shrugged and figured she might as well. It was something that was sure to at least hit the radar of the history books. She'd fallen into the culture of the late sixties, braiding her hair and wearing headbands, loose shirts and flowing skirts. She decided to let herself go for once and not be so straight laced. And besides, The Who were going to be there and she really did like their sound._

_Quinn found a ride to the festival in a van full of hippies and they passed around joints. Quinn took the offered hits and her new found friends laughed at her when she choked the first few times. She just shook her head and tried again and by the time they got to the festival site she had finally gotten the hang of it and one of them was teaching her how to roll up her own joints._

_When Quinn stepped out of the van onto the festival grounds it was like nothing she'd ever seen. There were thousands of people in this field and she could hear the music from the sound stage in the front of the crowd. The people she'd traveled with offered her a place to stay and she graciously accepted. They danced and smoked into the evening until someone came around offering what looked to be sugar cubes. Quinn furrowed her eyebrows at the familiar looking young man and gasped as soon as his brown eyes locked on her hazel._

_"Quinn…"_

_"Puck…"_

_"You're…at Woodstock. That's pretty badass."_

_Quinn nodded. "How are you?"_

_"Good babe, how about you?"_

_"Right now I'm pretty stoned."_

_"Sweet." He smiled a mischievous smile and held out a small cube. "You want to try one?"_

_"What is it?"_

_"LSD, babe. It's pretty awesome. Trip of a lifetime."_

_Quinn shrugged. It was about having fun and letting herself go for a little while at least. She figured she might as well throw herself into the experience because she may never get another chance. Puck put a thumb on her chin and opened her mouth and dropped the cube on her tongue. She kept her gaze locked on his as she waited for the trip._

_Puck tugged her to the ground and she leaned over against him as she started in on her trip. Her vision began to haze and she placed her hands on the ground on either side of her, eyes widening as it began moving, almost breathing. She felt herself falling backward, and she could see the night sky above her, the stars descending to dance inches above her. The music enveloped her and she smiled as Puck held a hand out. She took it, stepping up onto the rainbow that appeared in the midst of the campground. He led her down the path it made and she giggled at the little men with flowers in their hair holding out marijuana cigarettes. She took one, and tucked it between her lips, twirling and dancing on green and yellow raindrops as she fell into his arms._

_"Take me somewhere, Puck…please."_

_"You sure, babe?" his voice echoed. Quinn smiled._

_"I want you."_

...

Quinn smiled a little and shook her head. Puck's face said he'd been lost in the same memory.

"I'll see you later, Puck."

"Just…when you leave her then let her down easy, okay?"

Quinn gave an assuring nod. "It'll all be fine," she lied.

...

Quinn kept tutoring Rachel in Spanish but the girl just couldn't get it. They tried yoga, meditation, anything to get Rachel to relax and roll her "r's". The brunette was just incapable, Quinn decided.

"I give up," Rachel mumbled. "I'll just fail the oral final and get an A on the written, it'll average out to a B since the spoken part is only worth twenty-five percent of the entire test."

Rachel slipped her books into her backpack and sighed. Quinn hated the look of disappointment on the girl's face so she reached forward and swept Rachel's hair out of her eyes. She leaned in and pressed the gentlest of kisses onto the brunette's pouting lips.

"Try again," Quinn whispered.

Rachel tried, she was a little closer. Quinn kissed her again. Rachel tried once more and she was so close that Quinn could taste it. The blonde kissed her one last time, a little harder than the rest and Rachel's breath hitched in her throat and with her eyes still closed…she did it.

The brunette's eyes flew open and Quinn grinned.

"I told you we'd find something to relax you."

Rachel giggled and pulled Quinn back in for another kiss.

"I suppose you'll just have to kiss me right before my final."

"I was planning on doing that anyways."

As things got deeper with Rachel, Quinn couldn't help but fall harder. Their first time was when Quinn spent the last night of Hanukkah with the Berrys.

Quinn didn't think of herself as a slut, really. Like she'd told Puck, she had needs. The number would startle most people but then again, that would be one of the least startling things they could find out about her. However, out of all of the partners she had, something about Rachel was different. It was different like it had been only one other time. It was out of passion and love, not out of primal urge.

When Rachel had fallen asleep Quinn quietly sat up and took one of the blankets with her as she made her way to Rachel's bedroom window. She kept the blanket held close to her chest as the cold air ran down over her exposed back. She stared out the window at the barely visible by the moon layer of snow that had blanketed Lima. Her thoughts drifted, surprisingly not to a time and place far away from where she was then. Her thoughts, for the first time in a very long time, were focused on the future until her trance was broken by soft lips on her back.

"I thought you were asleep," Quinn whispered. She leaned back into Rachel's small body and smiled.

"I got cold, someone took the blanket away." Rachel tugged at the blanket clutched to Quinn's chest and pulled it around where it was covering both of them. "Tell me about these," the brunette whispered as she kissed over another scar.

"Maybe someday," Quinn sighed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you now."

...

_**October 8, 1871  
Chicago, Illinois**_

_Quinn grumbled as she picked up her things that she'd dropped when someone had knocked into her. She knew the O'Learys would be angry that she was late with their things that Catherine had asked her to pick up from the market but there was really nothing else she could do. She picked up the breads and yards of fabric before carefully making her way down DeKoven street toward the Irish family's barn. She'd been working for them for about three weeks in exchange for a room in their home and taking care of their young son and daughter._

_Late that night after having been lectured by Mrs. O'Leary on being responsible and how the woman had taken her into her home and expected her to do as she was asked Quinn quietly retreated to her room after putting the children to bed. She read a few chapters in her copy of the brand new Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. She giggled at the images of what a "bread-and-butterfly" might look like when she smelled it. She smelled smoke. It wasn't the same as what the stove in the kitchen would smell of. She closed her book and went to her window to look out back and gasped at what she saw._

_There were orange and yellow flames engulfing the O'Leary's barn and men shouting about retrieving the fire brigade. Quinn could practically feel the heat off of them and she grabbed her bag from underneath her bed and quickly started shoving her belongings in it. She slung it over her shoulder and went to the children's room where she met Catherine. Quinn hoisted James on her hip and Catherine picked up Anna and they quickly ran through the streets. Quinn turned back to see the rear of the O'Leary's house beginning to catch fire. She gasped at the thought of what she left behind and dropped her bag and handed James off to Mrs. O'Leary. The woman screamed after her but Quinn took off running._

_The blonde made it into the house, the air was thick with smoke. She got to her small bedroom and started rummaging around in her chest of drawers. There was the sound of glass breaking and Quinn screamed at the stabbing pains in her back as the shards hit her but she carried on looking. She finally found it, that little gold ball, rolling around in one of her bottom drawers. She grasped the ball in her hand and hurried out of the house. The upper part of the sleeve of her dress caught fire on the way and she quickly put it out, the burns were merely pink flesh by the time she reached Catherine and the children again. The Irish woman pulled two shards of glass out of Quinn's back when they got out of the city. Lucky for Quinn, Catherine was too stunned by the fire to notice how quickly the wounds healed._

_Quinn camped with the O'Learys outside of the city. She watched as the massive flames engulfed the buildings and the majority of Chicago was left in absolute ruin. She tended to the wounded, just as she had done during the war and she saw more death and more infection. When the excitement had died down, Quinn said her goodbyes to the O'Learys and tried to figure out where to go next._

...

"I love you, Quinn," Rachel whispered as she pressed another kiss to the scars. "Whenever you're ready."

"I love you, too."

Unlike the countless number of times she'd said it to others who she knew she could leave when she had to…she meant it when she said it to Rachel. And that meant trouble. But Quinn had enough of being cautious. She had enough of lying. She had enough. And she knew she could trust Rachel but the problem was trying to figure out how to tell her.

...

Quinn made her way through the school library in search of Rachel. Winter break had only been over for a few days, Quinn had spent plenty more time at the Berry house for the duration of it. Rachel's dads again offered their home to her but Quinn again denied.  
The blonde found her girlfriend at one of the computers scrolling through what looked to be like extremely old pictures on some website. Quinn dropped to the seat next to her and pecked her on the cheek.

"How's the paper going, sweetie?"

"Not bad," Rachel said with a grin. She turned her head and put her fingertips underneath Quinn's chin and pulled her in for a proper kiss. "I'll be glad to have it over with. I can't believe we're only a few short months away from graduation, it's so exciting!"

Quinn smiled a little. "Yeah, exciting."

Rachel turned her attention back to the computer screen and Quinn pulled out her periodic table of elements to study the elements that had been added since the last time she was in school. She jotted down the numbers and symbols on index cards to use later and listened to Rachel type on the computer and scroll up and down. She only looked away from her work when she heard Rachel gasp a little.

"What's the matter, Rach?"

Rachel swallowed hard and Quinn watched the color drain from the girl's face as she stared at the computer screen. Quinn tore her eyes away from her girlfriend and to the screen. Her stomach dropped. On the screen was a very, very old photograph, and she was looking at herself, Puck in uniform, and another nurse. Her eyes darted to the caption.

"_Two Union nurses and a Union soldier during the American Civil War. Photograph circa 1864._"

Quinn only looked away from the computer screen when she heard Rachel hit the floor. The blonde got the attention of the librarian and exited out of Rachel's internet window while the woman went back to the desk to call the nurse.

"I'm so sorry, Rachel," Quinn whispered as she pressed a kiss to the girl's forehead.  
Quinn quickly packed up her bags and snuck out of the library to search the hallways for Puck who was nowhere to be found. She ran out of the school to the football field where she spotted him chatting with Finn near one of the benches.

"Hey Quinn," they greeted her in unison.

Quinn smiled and grasped onto Puck's forearm. "We need to talk. Now."

Puck shrugged and Quinn pulled him toward the bleachers.

"What's up?"

"Rachel knows."

"What?"

"Rachel, she _knows_."

"You mean…how the hell?"

By the time Quinn finished explaining what had happened in the library Puck looked almost as pale as Rachel had. He rubbed his forehead and took a few deep breaths.

"So…what are you gonna do?"

"I don't know! We've never…I mean, this has never happened! I was planning on telling her sometime but not yet!"

"Do you trust her?"

"Yes," Quinn whispered. "I do."

"Then maybe you should just go ahead and tell her. Tell her everything. I don't have a problem with it, she's a good person even if she is a little irritating."

Quinn swallowed hard and nodded. This was it. Puck wrapped his arms around her for a quick hug and kissed the top of her head.

"Let me know how it goes."

The blonde sighed as she pulled away and gripped the strap of her backpack and headed back to the school building. She made her way to the nurse's office and stepped inside. Before she could get the words out of her mouth the nurse pointed over to the bed in the corner where Rachel's small body was. Quinn pulled a chair over and dropped her bag. She took a deep breath before she sat down and took the girl's hand in hers. Rachel stirred a little at the contact and Quinn's heart started racing.

"Quinn?"

"I'm right here."

Rachel locked eyes with Quinn and Quinn could see the wheels in the girl's head turning.  
"We're not going to talk about it right now," Quinn said before Rachel had a chance to open her mouth. "We'll talk about it tonight. I need some time to figure out what to say."

Rachel nodded and Quinn waited with her until Alex picked them up. Rachel was silent the entire car ride home and Quinn stared at her lap and tried to figure out how to explain everything. Out of all the things she'd done in her life, this was probably in her top five of the hardest.

They arrived at the Berry house much too quickly and Quinn followed Rachel upstairs to her bedroom. Alex kissed the top of Rachel's head and thanked Quinn for staying with her before he headed back to work. Rachel crawled up on her bed and sat at the headboard, Quinn took her place in front of the brunette. She reached out to take Rachel's hands and the brunette recoiled a little and pulled her knees up to her chest to hug them. Quinn sighed.

"What do you want to know?"

Rachel trembled a little. "I…I don't know."

"Okay…let's start with the basics. I'm not really seventeen. I'm a hundred and sixty-eight."

Rachel shook her head. "That's impossible. Obviously…that picture was…was photoshopped."

"It wasn't. And you know it wasn't. You wouldn't have actually fainted if you really believed that."

"So…let's assume I believe you. How did this happen?"

Quinn took yet another deep breath and spoke the words out loud that she never thought she'd ever tell anyone. "It started the spring before I turned sixteen…"

...

_**April 1859  
Savannah, Georgia**_

_Quinn sprinted through the fields and hit the forest edge and stared into the darkness. Even on the verge of turning sixteen she still never dared venture into the forest. She shouldn't have been running through the fields at that age anyway but there was still that little bit of her that was ten years old that loved to run and have sugar cookies when she returned home._

_She stared into the forest, just as she had always done. As always, she wondered what could be looming inside and she never found out. She would always turn back to the house. On this day, though, something rustled. She jumped a little and peered harder._

_"Hello?" she called._

_"Yeah?" a voice called back._

_"Who's there? This is my father's property, you know! You could be arrested!"_

_The voice chuckled. A young man with dark hair and dark eyes emerged from the forest slowly. There was a bag slung over his shoulder and he had a smile on his face._

_"So you're a Fabray?" he asked._

_Quinn nodded. "Quinn."_

_"Noah Puckerman. Everyone calls me Puck." He extended his hand and Quinn took it. The tenderness of his grasp shocked the blonde a little._

_"That's an unusual last name, Puck. I've never heard it."_

_"I'm from up north."_

_Quinn gasped. "A Yankee?"_

_"I don't care either way," he said. "I'm just looking for work."_

_"Perhaps my father could give you work. If you'll come with me I could ask him."_

_Puck smiled and followed Quinn through the fields. She talked about life on the plantation. He talked about his father leaving his family and how he was to send money to his mother and sister. When he pleaded his case to Quinn's father and the importance of family to him the older man showed sympathy and hired Puck as a house boy._

_It wasn't long before the summer affair started. Quinn's father was adamant in his disapproval of Quinn courting a boy that was not only just a houseboy but a "damn Yankee" as well. The pair took to meeting in the shadows near the forest and in closets while Puck was working. Quinn was in love, she was so in love that she would have given up anything to spend forever with the young man._

_..._

_**October 1859  
Savannah, Georgia**_

_Quinn paced back and forth in the parlor nervously wringing her hands. Puck sat on one of the chairs with his head buried in his hands._

_"You're sure?" he asked for the third time. "Really sure?"_

_"Yes! I told you!"_

_"I should ask your father for your hand. If we get married right now…"_

_"He'll say no. He doesn't think you're good enough for me."_

_"That's…"_

_"You're a house boy, Puck. I have to marry a plantation owner or his son or someone of equal wealth, don't you understand? And for goodness sake, there is no way he'll let me marry a Yankee! I'm certain he could look beyond the wealth but a Yankee? He'd rather I die a lonely old spinster."_

_"Damn Yankees!" Russell Fabray's voice boomed through the house. "I knew it! I told Johnson last week they were trying to start trouble, I said it!"_

_Puck stood and grabbed his jacket from the back of the couch and hurried out of the parlor._

_"What's the matter, Daddy?" Quinn asked sweetly, putting on her best smile._

_"Nothing, Quinnie. Nothing a young lady needs to worry her head about."_

_"Daddy, I know I'm a young lady but I like to know what's going on."_

_"This Yankee, John Brown, he's a radical and trying to destroy how we do things around here. He's tried to raid Harper's Ferry to steal our ammunition to give to some slaves to lead a revolt. Colonel Lee put a stop to it before things got out of control but," Russell sighed and rubbed his forehead, "I have a feeling this isn't the last time we'll hear about these things."_

_"Daddy, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," Quinn tried to assure her father. "It's just some troublemakers."_

_Russell chuckled. "You wouldn't understand, Quinnie. Where's that house boy? I need a drink."_

_"I think Pu-Noah went to the kitchen. Why don't you approve of him courting me, Daddy?"_

_"I've told you, he's not good enough. And he's a Yankee."_

_"He says he doesn't care either way."_

_"He was born a Yankee. Blood says everything. Why don't you go on upstairs and take a nap?"_

_Quinn sighed and nodded. "Of course, Daddy."_

_When she was awoken from her nap by her mother, Quinn stood patiently as the woman laced up her dress and sighed disapprovingly._

_"I'm going to ask Mary to stop giving you so many sweets," Judy Fabray said. "You've gained two inches on your waist."_

_Quinn nodded. "Noah would be a good father," she whispered._

_Her mother didn't say anything._

_..._

_The way her father found out was by complete accident._

_"You can't hide it forever," Puck hissed. "That's my child, our child! You're carrying our child and I want to marry you!"_

_There was a deafening silence as Quinn looked over Puck's shoulder to her father who was standing in the doorway. He calmly walked to the cabinet in the corner of the parlor and produced a Smith & Wesson pistol._

_"Daddy," Quinn's voice quivered._

_Puck spun around just as Russell raised the firearm. The younger of the two took off in a sprint out of the parlor and front door, Quinn chased after him but was held back by her father who shut the door loudly._

_"What do you have to say for yourself?"_

_"I…" Quinn looked up into the stern eyes of her father and she winced at the grip he had on her arm. "I'm so sorry…He'll marry me, he's said he'll do it…"_

_Russell shook his head. "Go pack your things."_

_"Daddy…why? Where?"_

_"Go pack them." He let go of her arm and returned the pistol to its cabinet. "And leave."_

_Quinn did as she always did and she obeyed her father's orders. She packed a few simple dresses in a bag along with what little money she had when she descended the staircase she looked into the parlor to see her father standing with his hands on the mantelpiece staring up at their family portrait._

_"Daddy, please…"_

_"Go," he said. "You've embarrassed me." He shook his head. "Damn Yankees," she heard him mutter as she shut the front door._

_Quinn found herself walking toward Savannah with her small bag and she found her way to the train depot and sat on one of the benches, unsure of where to go or what to do. She watched people board the train that was apparently destined for Charleston. She listened to the station master call out times and she waited. For what, she was unsure of._

_"Quinn!" she heard the familiar voice from a distance._

_Puck was suddenly in front of her and he pulled her into his arms._

_"Come on," he said. "We're getting on that train."_

_"I don't have a ticket."_

_"We don't need one, come on."_

_Puck led her to the freight car attached to the passenger train and hoisted her up into the box. Quinn looked around at the various crates and barrels that were tightly packed. She carefully took a seat on one of the crates and Puck shut the large sliding door. There was a little light coming in through the gaps in the boards but otherwise it was mostly dark._

_"Will we stay in Charleston?" Quinn whispered. She sniffled and wiped away the tears she felt escaping her eyes._

_"No," Puck answered. "We'll keep going until we get to Virginia, around Manassas, where my mother and sister live. We'll get married and I'll take care of you, okay? I promise I'll do whatever I have to."_

_Quinn nodded._

_..._

_**July 21, 1861  
Just outside of Centreville, Virginia**_

_"Puck, they're getting closer!" Quinn whimpered when she heard the rifle fire._

_Quinn was standing on the small front porch of the small one-room house that Puck had built by hand on a few acres of land he'd purchased from the man he was working for. Immediately after they got to Manassas they were married and lived with Puck's mother and sister until Puck found work. They'd lived in an even smaller worker's house while Puck built their own in his spare time. After he was finished in the fields of his employer's land he would come home and tend their own small fields. His mother taught Quinn how to cook with what little they could afford and when their daughter came she was the midwife who brought the girl into the world and showed Quinn everything she needed to know about being a mother._

_Rebekah, with her small doll Quinn had made from extra quilting material, cautiously walked out onto the small porch and clung onto Quinn's leg. The blonde picked up her small daughter and kissed her head. Puck was right behind her a few seconds later and he wrapped an arm around Quinn's waist._

_"It'll be fine," he assured her._

_Quinn let out an uneasy sigh and went back into the house to read her Bible to Rebekah. As the hours progressed the shots were getting louder and Quinn didn't miss the nervous look on Puck's face as he got up and looked out the door several times. He took his rifle down from above the door and began cleaning it. There was a pause in the firing for a while, Quinn got up that time and looked out the door, she could see nothing._

_"See?" Puck said. "Nothing to worry about."_

_He lifted Rebekah on his hip and stepped out onto the front porch with a smile. He walked out off the porch and into the grass. Quinn smiled a little as her husband let the tiny blonde down to run around and he chased after her._

_Quinn squinted when she saw something, several somethings in gray, coming toward her and she yelled for Puck and ran toward Rebekah but several shots ringing out stopped her dead in her tracks. It wasn't the sound that stopped her, though. It was the sight. Her heart throbbed in her ears as she watched Puck drop to his knees next to their daughter._

_"No," he whispered. "NO!" The second was a shout. Quinn couldn't move._

_..._

_"I think we should leave," Puck said as he stared out the window._

_It had been three weeks. Three silent weeks in their small house. Quinn mostly stared at the empty small bed that was next to her own. She went through the actions of an obedient housewife, cleaning, cooking, sewing, but inside she was completely numb._

_"I can't leave her," Quinn mumbled._

_"It's just a grave. There's nothing to leave."_

_"It's more than a grave…"_

_"Things are getting worse," Puck said. "More dangerous. We need to leave."_

_..._

_**October 1861  
Titusville, Pennsylvania**_

_Quinn sighed as she stirred the pot hovering over the fireplace in the small worker's house. She shivered and wrapped her shawl around her shoulders even tighter. The sun was setting and Puck would be in soon from his job at the oil well and as a good wife she needed to have his supper ready. She pulled the kettle of hot water off of the fire and poured it into the wash basin on the countertop put out the soap and a towel. She refilled the kettle from the shared pump outside the house, making small talk with the other wives, and put it back on the stove to use for dishwater later. Right on time, Puck came in and started scrubbing his arms and face, trying to remove as much of the oil as he could._

_"How was your day?" Quinn asked quietly as she took two bowls from the cabinet._

_"Interesting," Puck said. "I have something to show you."_

_Quinn ladled the soup into the bowls and set each one at the table. While Puck finished washing she sliced a few pieces of bread and set them out with glasses of milk._

_"After supper," she said. "You need to eat, they're working you to the bone. You look exhausted."_

_Quinn sat across from her husband and they silently ate their meal by the glow of the fireplace. When Puck was finished Quinn took his bowl to their larger wash basin and poured hot water in it and scrubbed the dishes while he threw out his water from the wash basin he'd used earlier. Quinn smiled appreciatively when he returned and he kissed the top of her head before settling into his rocking chair. After the dishes were washed and dried, Quinn joined him in her own chair and went to work on repairing a hole in one of Puck's shirts._

_"I want to show you something," Puck stated again._

_Quinn looked up at her husband and watched him dig around in his pocket and he produced a small gold ball._

_"I stepped on this on my way home," he said._

_Quinn furrowed her eyebrows. The ball was peculiar, it was simply a ball but there was almost a glow about it. And it was gold. Very shiny gold._

_"What is it?"_

_"I don't know but when I picked it up…I don't know. It was strange."_

_Quinn held out her hand cautiously. "May I?"_

_Puck dropped the ball into Quinn's hand and she immediately knew why it was strange. The ball wasn't heavy as she expected it to be but very light, almost too light. She felt a warmth come over her and she got slightly dizzy. She felt very tired yet not and she felt her eyelids become a little heavy._

_"It is…very strange," she said. The warmth soon dissipated but the tiredness stayed. "What do you suppose it's made of?"_

_"Gold, the outside at least," Puck said. "I don't know about the rest."_

_Quinn handed the ball back to her husband. "Perhaps you should take it into a jeweler."_

_"I will next time I go to the city," Puck said. He got up and went to their bed and pulled out the small wooden chest from underneath it and dropped the ball in._

_The first time Quinn noticed something odd was the next afternoon when she was slicing herself a piece of bread to have with her soup at lunch. The knife hit her finger as it did every so often. The initial pain was normal and Quinn immediately reached for a rag. The problem was, when she looked down at her finger the wound was there but there was only a little blood oozing out. She furrowed her eyebrows and dabbed at it, the blood came off on the towel. It had felt like a deep cut and at first sight it looked a little deep but there was very little blood. Right before her eyes the wound got less deep and only a couple of minutes ticked by before it was completely healed. Quinn dropped into her chair and stared at the small scar._

_"Impossible," she whispered to herself._

_Puck burst into the cabin and Quinn jumped, her thoughts breaking away from the small scar on her finger. He stood in the doorway and looked at her._

_"I should be dead," was all he said._

_Quinn swallowed hard. "What?"_

_"I fell from the back of one of the wagons. I landed on my neck, Quinn. Everyone heard the snap, I felt the snap…but I got up and walked it off. I should be dead, I've seen men land like I did and they broke their necks and died on the spot."_

_Quinn's eyes darted back to the scar on her finger. "Something happened to me, too."_

_When she finished explaining her story, Puck's eyes darted to the kitchen knife sitting by the loaf of bread and he quickly cross the floor and held it in his hand. He trembled as he pressed the tip of the blade into his other arm. Quinn watched, wide eyed, as blood barely oozed out. She dabbed away the blood and just as hers had done earlier, Puck's healed leaving only a scar._

_"What the hell is going on?" he said under his breath._

_Quinn glanced over at their bed and hurried across the floor and dropped to her knees on Puck's side. She pulled out the small box and opened it. The small glowing ball was still glowing. Quinn carefully picked it up and held it in her hands._

_"You think so?" Puck asked._

_"What else could it be?"_

_"So what do we do?"_

_"I don't know."_

_"We could sell it…"_

_"No!" Quinn shrieked. "Puck…we don't know what it can do…"_

_"Obviously it makes us not die."_

_"The consequences of this… the consequences could be disastrous if anyone were to find out."_

_"They can't kill us."_

_"We mustn't tell anyone." Quinn dropped the ball back in the box. "Perhaps it will wear off. In a week or so, maybe." She grabbed her Bible and sat in her chair in front of the fireplace. "You should go back to work, they'll dock your pay."_

_"That's it? We just found out that we can't die and you want me to go back to work?"_

_"If you'd like something other than flour and water for your suppers then yes, you should go back to work."_

_Puck did go back to work. One week passed then two and three and then a month. They spoke of it a few times, wondering what would happen in the future. Would they age? What would the future hold? They tried everything to destroy the little ball in hopes that it would somehow lift whatever had been cast upon them. It floated. It didn't burn. They buried it and it was sticking out of the surface of the ground only hours later. Puck tried hitting it with hammer and it didn't even scratch. They kept reading news of the war and every time Puck would pick up the knife and poke himself and heal instantly Quinn knew more and more of what he was thinking._

_"I'm joining," he said two months after their discovery. "I'm joining the Union and I'm getting revenge."_

_"Puck…"_

_"I can't die! Why shouldn't I?"_

_"Keep your voice down!" Quinn hissed._

_"I should do this, Quinn."_

_"Puck…I…I love you, I don't want you to leave."_

_"Come with me! I read all the time that they need nurses and cooks. You know how to do that."_

_"I don't know anything of being a nurse!"_

_"You could learn. The doctors will teach you. I'm going whether you do or not."_

_"Fine," Quinn sighed. "We'll go."_

...

Rachel's eyes were wide and Quinn tried her best to keep her own locked with Rachel's even though she wanted desperately to look anywhere else.

"So," Rachel breathed, "to recap your story, you and Noah had a daughter, conceived out of wedlock, who was killed during the First Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War. And afterwards you found a glowing ball that somehow made you immortal and you're trapped as a seventeen year old for the rest of eternity?"

"Actually I was eighteen but I say seventeen for school. Other than that, yes, that about sums it up."

"Okay. I see a few possibilities here. You're certifiably insane and I should have you committed to a psychiatric hospital or you're lying or I'm certifiably insane and should be committed to a hospital…or you're telling the truth."

"I can prove it."

Quinn watched Rachel watch her as she got off the bed and go through her backpack. She pulled out her small pocket knife and flipped open the blade.

"Quinn…"

"I'll be fine."

Quinn took a deep breath and touched the metal to the palm of her hand and made sure Rachel watched as she pressed deep and dragged it along her skin. Quinn twitched a little at the initial pain, it was always the same. She folded the knife back up and dropped it to her backpack and Rachel stared at the palm of her hand as a few drops of blood oozed out. Quinn swallowed hard and blinked a few times and when she looked down at her hand there was nothing but a faint scar. Rachel squeaked and her jaw dropped.

"So either you're crazy or I'm telling the truth," Quinn said. She clutched her lower lip nervously between her teeth awaiting Rachel's reaction.

Rachel nodded slowly which turned into shaking her head. "It's impossible."

"Yeah, it is."

Quinn held her hand out and Rachel carefully took it and traced her fingers over the faint scar. She pressed a kiss to Quinn's palm and swallowed hard.

"I believe you," Rachel whispered.

Rachel pulled Quinn down to the bed, the blonde settled on top of her girlfriend and kissed her forehead.

"I love you, Rachel." Quinn pulled away and sat back on her knees. Rachel followed her and Quinn kept her forehead pressed against her lover's. "I love you…but more importantly, I trust you. I trust you with this. You can't tell anyone. You can talk to Puck about it but you cannot tell anyone. Not your dads…not anyone. Promise me, Rachel."

Rachel nodded. "I promise."

Quinn dropped her head and pressed her lips against Rachel's, the brunette understood it was to seal the promise. The rest of the afternoon was just for fun.

Basking in the afterglow, Rachel pressed a kiss to the scar on Quinn's ribcage. Quinn told her the story of Pearl Harbor.

"It was utter chaos," she whispered. "No one knew what to do because it just…it happened and it was the first time it had ever happened. We had drills to train us but nothing prepared us for it. We were scrambling around having to pick who to save and who to let go. That was the last time I ever enlisted. I almost wanted to for Vietnam…but I couldn't. Not after I saw what was going on over there."

"How did you manage to enlist, Quinn? Surely your birth records…"

"Fabricated. Just like everything else. It's getting more difficult to do since almost everything is done on computers. This might be the last time I ever go to school, I really don't know. I just do what I need to do at the time."

Before Rachel could open her mouth they heard the slam of the front door and Rachel pressed a soft kiss over the tattoo on Quinn's chest before the pair got out of bed to search for their discarded clothes. Rachel's dads offered once again for Quinn to move in with them and this time, the blonde nodded.

The next day at glee club, Quinn watched as Rachel cautiously approached Puck. He glanced at Quinn then back at Rachel. A few soft words were exchanged and Rachel hugged him before rejoining Quinn. Puck didn't talk much for the remainder of rehearsal, Quinn found him after school out on the football field staring off into space. She sat with him for a few minutes and rested her head on his shoulder.

"It doesn't get easier," he finally mumbled.

"No," Quinn sighed. "It doesn't."

"So Berry knows everything?"

Quinn nodded. "The beginning, anyway."

"You're really in love with her?"

Quinn nodded again. "Yeah."

"You were really in love with me, too."

"I know I was, Puck."

"What if she wants to…"

"I don't know."


	3. Chapter 3

**-Part III-**

The months passed, Quinn barely noticed. The snow melted away and the smell of the beginning of spring was wafting through the air. The nights were still cold but the days were getting warmer. That was all Quinn needed to know. She knew she would have to leave soon but the question weighed down on her mind of where she'd go.

Rachel would ask her random questions, things Quinn chuckled at and answered to the best of her knowledge.

"Why do you eat?"

Quinn shrugged. "It's strange. I can't die from starvation but I get hungry."

"What if someone were to cut off a limb entirely…or your head?"

"I don't know, it's never happened."

"Does it work on animals?"

"I have no idea. I've never tried it."

"There's a stray cat…"

"Rachel, I'm not going to experiment on a stray cat."

"It would be a perfectly legitimate…"

"No."

Rachel sighed. Quinn chuckled and pulled her curious girlfriend in for a kiss.

The brunette didn't ask about the scars very often but when she did, Quinn told her the story. She told her of being on _The Britannic_, the fire in Chicago, and summers as a young girl running through the cotton fields before her life changed. Mostly the questions were asked when they were both coming down from the high of their afternoons and nights of passion. Rachel would press a kiss to a scar and always whisper the same words and Quinn would softly recall that day's events. Rachel would kiss away the inevitable tears and respond with a story of her own.

Quinn perched herself on the edge of the cliff overlooking Lima. The sun was going down, the lights of the city were twinkling in the distance. She wasn't sure how long she stayed there but it was dark and cold by the time she considered leaving. She had watched the lights go out little by little as people shut them off to sleep. She'd looked over Savannah like that a few times when Puck had convinced her to come with him beyond the edge of the forest. The glow was much dimmer but it was still there. They would watch as the candles in windows were blown out and by the light of the moon they would sneak back to her house.

"Quinn?"

The blonde hadn't even heard the car pull up. She smiled at the familiar soft voice.

"How did you know I'd be here?"

"Noah…he told me you used to do this in Savannah. There's only one cliff overlooking Lima and so I thought I would find you here."

Quinn nodded. "Come sit."

She heard Rachel's footsteps echo off and the car door open and shut again. The brunette appeared beside her and spread a blanket out on the ground and wrapped half of another around Quinn's shoulders. She snuggled in close to the blonde and Quinn wrapped an arm around her.

"Why did you and Noah end things, Quinn?"

Quinn sighed. It was one thing Rachel had never asked about. The brunette hadn't ever brought it up and Quinn was a little grateful but now that the question was asked, she gave her answer.

"We drifted apart a long time before we split up. The only reason we stayed together as long as we did was to protect the secret. It wasn't the same after Rebekah but he protected me. He was safety. After the war he wanted to go west and settle on some land and just stay there to protect the secret. I wanted to travel and see as much of the world as I could. So, quietly, we went back to Virginia and filed for divorce." Quinn tightened her grip on Rachel's shoulder and choked back a sob.

"I saw…so much death in the States' war, Rachel. I was at Gettysburg and the field was literally red. All of it. If there wasn't a body on the ground then there was blood. After that I wasn't going to just sit in a cabin and do house work for the rest of eternity. So many never got the chance to do what they wanted and I had the chance and I wasn't going to waste it."

"If you could…figure out how to stop it…how to be m-mortal again…"

"In a heartbeat," Quinn sighed.

"Where will you go after this?"

Quinn grinned. "I've always loved New York."

Rachel nodded a little and reached over and unbuttoned a few buttons on the blonde's shirt. Her fingers moved over Quinn's neck and down, just under the right side of her collarbone, to a small circular scar that the blonde had felt Rachel's lips on several times but Rachel had never asked.

"Tell me," Rachel whispered.

...

**_November 22, 1963  
Dallas, Texas_**

_She'd seen Lincoln speak at Gettysburg. She'd seen Truman speak on his whistle stop campaign in California. She had the opportunity to see yet another president while she was living in Dallas and even though he wasn't going to be speaking, she figured she might as well. It was just a parade, it probably wouldn't even make the headline news out of Dallas, she thought._

_She was in high school, again. It had been a while since she'd been and quite a bit had changed. She was slowly but surely learning to type on a typewriter. Math had gotten harder, there was a lot more to learn. History was always the same, though, as was English. Her teachers commented on her beautiful script and the older ones always said the same thing, they wished the other students could take more pride in their writing. Fashion had changed, the skirts were getting shorter. It was uncomfortable at first with having been raised in a home where your skirts were to always touch the floor, but Quinn got used to it. She needed to blend in. She'd joined a cheerleading squad and was actually having a lot of fun._

_Quinn skipped school with a few friends to go to Dealey Plaza that day; they knew that would be the best spot for catching a glimpse of the young president and his beautiful wife. Her friends were always going on about First Lady Kennedy and her amazing fashion sense and how beautiful she was. They definitely commented on her handsome husband and of course his brothers. Quinn partook in their discussions not only about the President but of course, John, Paul, George, and Ringo. She'd join her friends to listen to their Beatles records and talk about how dreamy each of the four young men were._

_The group of four girls managed to get a spot right next to the street. They sat on the grassy knoll and chatted animatedly about the excitement. When the motorcade started coming through, Quinn stood and watched with eager anticipation as the cars rolled through. Her friend Susan spotted the presidential limousine first and pointed excitedly. Quinn stood up on her tip-toes to try and see. She caught a glimpse of the First Lady and her husband and grinned with excitement. The excitement left when shots rang out and screams started echoing through the plaza. She felt the pain in her chest and she grimaced and hit the ground just like everyone else._

_"Quinn, are you alright?" Susan gasped. The brunette pointed to the hole in Quinn's dress once they had cautiously stood up._

_Quinn looked down and swallowed hard. "I must've torn it," she sighed. "What do you suppose happened?"_

_Susan shrugged and they watched the others in the plaza slowly get up and officers started running into a building across the road. The four girls quickly made their way out of the plaza, Quinn stayed a few steps behind and kept her fingers over the wound that was pushing the bullet out on its own. When she could she grasped it and pulled. She dropped the piece of metal in the street and watched it roll into a sewer line. Surely a single bullet couldn't be that important._

...

Rachel pressed her lips to the scar again. "How have you managed to be present at some of the most historical things to ever happen to our country?"

Quinn shrugged. "I would say that I'm lucky but watching those things isn't what I would consider luck. We'll just go with coincidence."

"Every time you tell me something I become more fascinated by you, Quinn. And…and I think every day I fall a little more in love with you." Rachel gripped onto Quinn's shoulder and kissed up her neck.

"We should go home," the blonde whispered.

Rachel nodded.

...

The nights started getting warmer, Quinn had almost run out of scars for Rachel to inquire about but there were still plenty of stories to tell. She talked about the places she'd been in Europe and climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower and touring The Louvre. She recalled the months she spent in Italy tasting the finest Italian food anyone could ever imagine and learning how to cook from a chef in a small village. She talked about being submerged in cultures and learning languages not from textbooks but from the natives themselves.

Graduation loomed closer, Quinn was beginning to think about packing her bags. She hadn't told Rachel she'd be leaving before finals, just that they'd be together in New York. Quinn had every intention of going to New York, she honestly did. She just didn't know if Rachel would believe her or not.

The pair lay awake as they often did late into the night after a particularly passionate evening. Quinn was on her back with Rachel curled into her side. The blonde had one arm wrapped around Rachel's shoulders, the other behind her own head.

"How much do you remember, Quinn? I've done some research on neuroscience and the human brain hasn't shown to be capable of the amount of information you must have stored."

"I don't remember everything. Obviously I remember the scars but other than that most of it's hazy. I guess because I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. It's almost like…every time I switch who I'm around my brain gets rid of all of the other memories."

"It seems as though you only remember things that have hurt you both physically and emotionally."

Quinn shrugged. "Love and pain are the strongest emotions, aren't they? It only makes sense that I'd remember those."

Rachel made a soft affirmative noise and nuzzled a little deeper into Quinn's side. The blonde almost thought her girlfriend had fallen asleep until she spoke again.

"Do you think people have the capability of being in love forever?" Rachel asked quietly, her fingertips began tracing over Quinn's bare torso.

Quinn sighed. She knew this was coming. She'd never gone through it before but somehow, after she'd revealed her secret to Rachel, she knew it was coming.

"I don't know. I've only been in love twice."

"Noah and…" Rachel trailed off, Quinn could hear the smile.

"You, of course."

Rachel giggled and buried her face into Quinn's neck and brushed her lips over pale skin. "I love you, too."

"I know what you're going to ask of me, Rachel."

The brunette was silent. Quinn sighed and turned to face her lover. She propped herself up on her elbow and reached forward with the other hand to push Rachel's hair back out of her face.

"Immortality, Rachel…I know it sounds great, living forever. It sounds even better when you're in love and you want it to last forever. But there is death for a reason. Everything has to turn, you see? Death has to happen if life wants to continue. If everyone…"

"But it wouldn't be everyone," Rachel insisted. "Just…us. And Noah."

Quinn shook her head. "The world is already getting smaller for Puck and me. It's getting harder to find a way to live comfortably. I don't want this for you."

"I want this, Quinn. I want to be with you forever…"

"Rachel you know I love you. You know I do but we have to be realistic…who's to say that we'll last forever? If we don't you'll be stuck, just like me."

"You don't think we can make it?" Rachel's soft eyes filled with tears.

Quinn wiped her thumb over the water droplets escaping Rachel's eyes and kissed her forehead.

"What I know," Quinn whispered, "is that I love you and I want to protect you. I don't live, Rachel…I just…am. I'm stuck."

"Why not have someone to be stuck with?"

Quinn smiled a little. "I've got Puck for that. We manage to find each other every now and then."

Rachel sighed and rolled over onto her back.

"Rachel you would lose so much…you would lose everything, don't you understand?" Quinn scooted closer to her lover and wrapped her arm around the smaller girl's tan torso. "You couldn't live out your dreams."

Rachel turned her head and furrowed her eyebrows. "What?"

"Think about it. If you were ever on stage or famous you would only be able to do it for so long. You'd have to stop eventually and you couldn't do it again."

"People would forget…"

"No, they wouldn't. With photographs and video…you'd be immortalized in more than one way. You do your Broadway thing, retire, and if you tried to come back the chances that someone would find out you performed already are so, so great. You found a picture of me I didn't even know existed and it's dangerous, Rachel. I never thought about those things I did. I never knew that something like the internet would ever exist and that with a single picture I could be found out."

Rachel was silent again and Quinn leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

"I won't do it, Rachel. I'm sorry, but I can't. It's for your own good."

Rachel sighed and rolled back over to curl into Quinn's front. The blonde pressed a kiss to the top of her girlfriend's head and settled down to sleep with Rachel clinging onto her.

"I love you, Quinn," Rachel whimpered. "I love you so much."

"I love you too, Rach."

...

A week before finals, Quinn started packing her things. She did it slowly, hoping Rachel wouldn't notice. She knew it wouldn't work. If there was one thing she'd learned about Rachel it was that the brunette was extremely observant. If Rachel was clueless, she didn't say anything. She didn't have to. When she walked in on Quinn tucking away another outfit in her suitcase it was proof enough.

"Quinn…"

"It's not what you think, I swear."

"You're packing your things. Generally speaking, when one packs their things it is an indication that they're preparing to leave."

"Okay, it's exactly what it looks like." Quinn dropped the shirt in her hand and started cleaning out the rest of her drawer.

"Why are you doing it?"

"I can't graduate and it's pointless to take the finals. I thought I'd go ahead to New York and start scouting for a job where they won't do a background check and maybe look at a couple places."

"But…I…"

Quinn furrowed her eyebrows and looked up at the brunette who had her lower lip tucked between her teeth and was nervously wringing her hands.

"What is it, babe?"

"I thought maybe we could take a road trip this summer."

"A…road trip?"

Rachel nodded. "I thought perhaps we could…I don't want to sound like I'm interfering or trying to…" Rachel sighed and wrung her hands. "You see, you speak of…well you…I would never force you to do anything that would make you uncomfortable or perhaps bring up unpleasant memories but I was thinking that we might…if you wanted…"

Quinn chuckled a little and pulled out another shirt to pack. "I don't think I've ever heard you speechless like this, Rach."

Rachel took a deep breath. "I was wondering if you'd like to go…to Virginia. To…Centreville."

Quinn's heart dropped and she froze folding the t-shirt in her hands. She'd never been back there, no matter how many times she wanted to. She'd never been back. She knew Puck had, he'd told her about it. He said the cemetery Rebekah was buried in was still there, still small. It was kept by a family that had been in the area since the war, Quinn had recognized the name but long since forgotten it.

"Quinn, I'm so sorry."

Rachel was in front of her now, kneeling with her hands on Quinn's shoulders. Quinn blinked a few times and Rachel slipped her hands up to cup the blonde's face. Quinn nuzzled into the touch by force of habit.

"It still hurts, Rachel," the blonde whispered. She felt the tears slipping out of her eyes and Rachel wiped them away with her thumb and then leaned in to kiss away the tracks.

"I shouldn't have suggested it…please don't cry, Quinn."

Quinn launched herself forward, needing Rachel's comfort more than ever at that moment. She held on tight to her and sobbed into her shoulder. It was partially out of mourning, as it always was, but something else was tugging at her heart. Rachel had thought about this…had thought about her. She was only trying to help and Quinn fell a little more in love with her.

"We'll go," the words slipped out of her mouth. "I want to go."

Rachel's hands tensed up on her back a little at the agreement.

"Really?"

Quinn nodded. It was time.

"Would…"Quinn sniffled. "Would you kill me if I asked you if Puck could come? H-he knows the area better. He's been there a few times since…everything."

"Whatever you want, Quinn."

Quinn left with Rachel the mornings of finals but aimlessly wandered around Lima instead of going in to class. She did talk to Puck about the trip and he agreed to it. They both snuck underneath the bleachers to watch McKinley's graduation.

Two weeks later, Rachel's car was packed up with their things and Quinn was sitting nervously in the front seat. Puck sprawled out in the back and Rachel had volunteered to drive the first leg of the nine hour drive to Centreville. Quinn took over after the first three hours, the last three were Puck's. Rachel and Quinn crawled in the back seat together and Quinn snuggled up to her girlfriend with one arm hugged around her waist and her head settled on the brunette's shoulder.

"It's not too late to turn back," Rachel whispered. "We can go back."

Quinn shook her head. "It's time, Rach."

"Okay."

"I've thought…I've thought a lot about what I would've done if she hadn't died," Quinn choked. "If we'd moved to Pennsylvania, all three of us…if I would've let her do it or not. Let her touch it…God I would've loved to have seen her grown up, Rachel. I would've waited to let her make the choice, I think. I wanted to watch her grow up so bad…It doesn't get easier."

"We don't have to do this…"

Quinn snuggled closer to her girlfriend's side. "I told you, it's time."

The remainder of Puck's drive was silent, mostly due to the fact that both Rachel and Quinn fell asleep. The next thing Quinn was aware of was Puck nudging her awake outside a small hotel.

"I got us checked in and everything," he said, handing Quinn a room key. "We only have enough for one room, it's two beds."

Quinn yawned and shook Rachel awake to get their things into the hotel room. It was nice for something out of the way. Quinn dropped her bag on the bed furthest from the door and went to the sink to splash cold water over her face.

"Do you want to go tonight or wait?" Puck asked as he grabbed the TV remote.

"Tomorrow," Quinn sighed. "It'll be dark soon."

"We passed a diner on the way in, we'll go there for dinner," he said. "This TV doesn't get shit for channels."

"You survived the majority of your life without television, Noah," Rachel cut in, "and you're complaining?"

"Yeah and it totally sucked. Life before scrambled porn was boring."

"Proof that the male brain never changes," Quinn said as she dried her face off.

"Never, babe. So like, if you guys wanted to get a little freaky…"

"No, Puck."

"Absolutely not, Noah!"

"Hey, no harm in asking."

Quinn rolled her eyes and dropped the towel on the sink then joined Rachel on their bed.

"Boys," the blonde mumbled, settling her head on Rachel's shoulder. "Puck, you're a daily reminder of why I haven't dated a guy since the seventies."

Rachel giggled a little and Quinn pressed a gentle kiss to her neck.

...

Quinn didn't sleep that night. She lay awake staring up at the ceiling while Rachel cuddled up next to her and slept soundly. The blonde looked over at Puck's bed a few times, he was doing the exact same. He looked over at Quinn and stretched his arm across the gap between the two beds, Quinn did the same and took his hand in hers.

"How bad will it hurt to see it?" Quinn asked in a whisper.

"Pretty bad."

"Thanks for coming with us."

Puck squeezed Quinn's hand and let go, rolling over with his back to her. Quinn focused her attention on the girl snuggled up to her other side and ran her fingers through Rachel's dark brown locks and kissed the top of her head.

"I love you, Rachel," she whispered.

Rachel mumbled something in her sleep and clung tighter to her girlfriend.

...

Quinn paced the hotel room floor back and forth while Puck and Rachel sat on their respective beds and waited patiently. The blonde thought she was prepared for this, she really did. But facing the fact that it would happen in less than an hour had her more nervous than she'd been in her entire existence. She paced a few more times before stopping in front of the hotel room door, taking a deep breath, and putting her hand on the handle.

"Okay. Let's go."

Puck drove through the streets of Centreville; it looked nothing like it had, of course. Quinn stared out the window and the buildings disappeared as they drove along and pavement turned into gravel. She saw barns and livestock and finally a barbed wire fence surrounding a small plot of land with stones sticking out of the ground. There was a house off in the distance on the same land. She wasn't sure when she'd gotten out of the car, but she had. Puck was on her left side with his arm wrapped around her waist and Rachel was on her right side with Quinn's hand clasped tightly in her own.

Puck grabbed onto the top string of barbed wire and stepped on the one below it for Quinn and Rachel to duck through. He climbed over the fence and resumed his position of having an arm around Quinn's waist as he led them to one of the far corners of the cemetery where a fairly new looking headstone was sticking out of the ground.

"The original stone is hard to read," he said. "So I took all the money I had last time I was here and bought a new one to put up."

Quinn dropped to her knees and put a hand over the tattoo on her chest and the other against the flat stone on the ground and looked up and down between it and the headstone protruding from the grass.

_Rebekah Fabray Puckerman_

_Born  
5-16-1860_

_Died  
7-21-1861_

She traced her fingertips over the weathered and worn rock where her daughter's name was barely visible. Puck was right, it hurt. All of the physical pain she'd ever gone through was nothing compared to the stabbing in her chest and the feeling that her airways were closing. She gasped for air a few times before finally crying out and pressing her palm flat against the cold rock. Everything was real. It wasn't just a dream and she wasn't going to wake up from it all. It happened, all of it happened and it meant that it was going to keep happening and there wasn't going to be an end to it.

The blonde felt a soft hand on her right shoulder and what possessed her to do it, she didn't know, but she shrugged away from it and leaned to her left into stronger arms that held her while she cried into his chest.

"I'll…go wait in the car," she heard a soft voice say, filled with what could only be called rejection.

Quinn didn't have the energy to run after her, only to cling on to Puck a little harder and pray that Rachel would forgive her because at the moment she needed someone who got it. Someone who had been there with her and without her but had been there.

"I want it to stop," Quinn whimpered. "I want it to stop, Puck…please just make it stop."

"We gotta go," Puck said softly. "We gotta go…"

"No…no I can't leave her."

"It's just a grave."

"Stop saying that. You don't believe it."

"You're right, I don't," he said. He pulled Quinn away by her shoulders and the blonde looked up into Puck's matching red eyes. "But there's another girl that needs you to tell her everything's gonna be okay right now."

Quinn turned her head to the car that was waiting on the gravel road. Rachel was sitting in the back, behind the passenger seat, staring straight ahead.

"She d-doesn't unders-s-stand."

"No, she doesn't. But she wants to and she loves you and she's _here_, Q. Rachel is here."

Quinn turned back to the two stones once more and touched her head to the cool rock before pressing a kiss to it and letting a few more tears fall. She stood and Puck helped her through the fence again and back to the car. The blonde slid into the back seat next to her girlfriend and reached over to take Rachel's hand. The brunette winced a little.

"I'm sorry, Rachel…I'm so sorry."

Rachel was quiet the entire drive back to the hotel. When they got there, Puck kicked the two girls out of the car and took off with it leaving the blonde and the brunette alone in the room. Quinn sat in the middle of one bed, Rachel on the other.

"You still love him, don't you?"

Quinn nodded. "I'll always love him but it's not…he's the father of my baby…he's the only one who has ever known what I was going through. He's the only one that knows what it's like to want it to end. I'll always be connected to him. But I love you, Rachel…I want to _be with_ you. I don't want to be with him."

"I could know as well, Quinn, if you'd let me."

Quinn dropped her head and threaded her fingers through her hair. "Rachel…"

"I meant I wish that you would at least discuss it with me."

"What do you want me to tell you? I lost a _child_, Rachel. No one knows what that is like until they've lived it. No one. No matter how much talking I do or how much I let you in there are some things you're never going to understand, okay?"

Rachel whimpered a little.

"You're born, you live, you die," Quinn mumbled. "I was born and now here I am. I'll look like this forever. You're going to age, you're going to live life knowing that each day could be your last. I'm going to lose everyone I care about except for Puck. I know you only know him as this guy that likes to chase women but he's a lot more than that to me. He's sweet and romantic and he was my first love and the father of our child so I'm sorry but we'll always have that."

"Are you breaking up with me?"

"No!" Quinn snapped her head up and jumped off of her bed over to Rachel. She cupped the girl's face in her hands and shook her head. "I love you, Rachel. I love you I'm just trying to get you to understand why sometimes…sometimes I might go to him to talk instead of you. I'll try to talk to you about it but sometimes I need someone who gets it, alright?"

Rachel nodded. "I understand."

"We're okay, right?" Quinn tucked Rachel's hair back behind her ears. "New York City?"

"New York City," Rachel whispered, closing the gap between them to press a kiss to Quinn's lips.

Quinn smiled into the kiss and Rachel pulled her back on the bed. Quinn settled her hips in between her girlfriend's legs and ran her hands up the sides of Rachel's shirt and was almost to her goal when the hotel room door flung open.

"Damn!" Puck growled. "Shoulda waited like five more minutes!"

Quinn rolled her eyes and sat up. "You are not watching us have sex, Puck."

Puck dropped a few bags and a tray of cups on the small hotel room table. "Got dinner, burgers and fries. I didn't know what kind of shakes you guys wanted so I got one of each." He gestured to the three cups.

"You're still not watching."

"I bought you dinner!"

"Noah, spending fifteen dollars on artery clogging grease sandwiches does not constitute buying us dinner. Even if it did, the answer is still no."

"You guys suck."

Quinn smirked and Rachel shook her head.

Puck sat on the bed while Rachel and Quinn each took a chair at the small table to eat their dinners. It was mostly silent aside from the sound of the TV, Puck had finally managed to pick up something halfway decent on TV.

"So you guys figure your shit out?" he asked when the reception went out again.

Quinn nodded. "I think so."

"We've come to the understanding that there are certain emotional supports that only you are able to provide Quinn with but that I am most certainly her partner of choice. She's assured me that she'll attempt to confide in me but I realize that there are aspects of her past that I won't be able to relate to."

"So…you're cool?"

"Yes, Noah, we're cool."

"Sweet. You guys are going to New York after this, right?"

Quinn grabbed Rachel's strawberry shake and took a drink. "Yeah, why?"

Rachel squeaked as the blonde returned the drink. "Quinn, that's unsanit-"

"I just had my tongue in your mouth less than half an hour ago, sweetie. You really want to talk about sharing straws?"

Rachel growled and retaliated by taking a drink of Quinn's chocolate shake and smirking in triumph.

Puck smirked. "Thought maybe I'd tag along to New York. I've never been."

"Noah, you mean to tell me you've spent well over a century and a half on this Earth and you've never been to New York City?"

"Nope," Puck shrugged. "Q's the travel expert. I mostly stuck out west except for Woodstock."

"If you want to come," Quinn said with a shrug, "fine with me. You're getting your own place, though."

"Quinn, living in New York City is very expensive. It would be difficult for Noah to find a decent living space on one income."

"He'd drill holes in the wall so he could watch us and he'd probably try to bug our room with cameras."

Rachel narrowed her eyes at Puck who looked away from the pair and whistled. The brunette threw a few French fries at the young man on the bed.

"Hey!"

"Perhaps Quinn is right, you should find your own living space."

Puck threw the fries back toward the table. "I'm a dude. You guys are hot. Seriously, can you blame me?"

Quinn and Rachel each threw a handful of fries and Puck tried to shield them but failed miserably.


	4. Chapter 4a

**-Part IV A-**

**August 2012  
New York City, New York**

Puck did migrate with Quinn and Rachel to New York City and they did consent to let him move in with them into a very small one bedroom apartment. Puck slept on the pullout couch in the living room, Rachel and Quinn in the bedroom. Rachel made him sign a contract stating he would, under no circumstances, drill holes in the wall or place any kind of recording devices in the apartment lest he be thrown out onto the street with nothing but the clothes on his back and since Puck had a habit of walking around the apartment in only his boxers, he signed.

Rachel attended her classes at Julliard and worked an on-campus job; Puck just left during the days and came home with money. He assured Quinn he wasn't doing anything illegal so she just rolled her eyes and gave him a grocery list. Quinn found a job at a dark, suspicious looking bar where the owner only required her name, a phone number, and an emergency contact. Quinn wrote it all down, putting the number for Puck's pay by the minute phone he'd come home with one afternoon. The bar owner stated that if Quinn didn't ask questions, neither would he. The system worked.

It was rare that the three of them got to spend time together, someone was always working or going to class, their free time rarely overlapped but when it did they were Quinn's favorite moments. She and Rachel would snuggle up on the couch, Puck would stretch out on the floor, they'd make a giant bowl of popcorn, and settle down to watch whatever was on TV or catch up on TiVo (the one splurge they'd agreed on).

It was a Sunday afternoon in October, just before Rachel and Quinn's anniversary. The brunette had insisted on being the big spoon that day when the trio went through their ritual. Quinn was relaxed back against Rachel with her head tucked under the brunette's chin and her fingers entwined with Rachel's on her stomach. Puck, seated on the floor and leaning against the couch, flipped through the TV channels and finally settled on a documentary about the 1960's since there was nothing else on.

"We were there," Puck said, pointing to the TV. On the screen were scenes from Woodstock.

Quinn groaned. "Oh God, can we please not talk about that?"

"You went to Woodstock? Like…actual Woodstock?"

"You never told her about that?" Puck smirked and turned to look at the pair. Quinn narrowed her eyes at him.

"No!" she hissed.

"Q had her first taste of LSD."

"Shut up, Puck."

Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. "You've experimented with drugs?"

"Then and then only. It was _Woodstock_, Rachel. What else was I going to do? I haven't touched it or anything else except for alcohol since then."

"Which is a total bummer. She was a horndog when she was on acid."

Rachel spit out the drink of water she had just taken, soaking Quinn. The blonde shot up out of Rachel's embrace and grabbed napkins off the coffee table to dry herself off.

"What?" Rachel looked back and forth between her girlfriend and her friend.

"Puck."

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to kill you."

"Rach, it was like…" Puck furrowed his eyebrows and counted on his fingers. "Twenty-five years before you were born. Seriously, no big deal. It was the last time we did it."

"Well yes but I was under the assumption you had discontinued your relationship long before then."

"Sex isn't dating," Puck laughed. "Like I said, it was the last time."

"The last time you saw each other?" Rachel inquired, pulling Quinn to lean against her and re-wrapping her arms around the blonde.

"No. When was it Q?"

"I don't know, sometime in the nineties. Denver, at that diner. I had just come back from Europe."

"You bitched at the waitress about the lasagna."

"I was used to actual Italian food. Not diner food. Give me a break."

Rachel giggled and pulled Quinn's hair away to kiss the back of her neck.

"Wait, wait!" Quinn sat up and pointed at the TV. "Give me that." She grabbed the remote out of Puck's hand and hit 'rewind'. She hit play when she found what she was looking for and the clip that flashed on the screen was only a couple of seconds long but Quinn had spotted something familiar. She laughed when she saw it. "Look!"

She played the clip again and hit pause. On the screen was Quinn in mid twirl with a joint in one hand and Puck's hand in the other as he leered at her.

"Oh my God, Quinn!" Rachel squealed. "You were a hippie! A complete hippie!"

"Dude, that is awesome."

"That must've been right after you gave me the acid. I look so spaced out."

Rachel grinned and pressed a kiss to Quinn's cheek. "You look beautiful."

Quinn shook her head and smiled and again leaned back against Rachel. Puck hit 'play' and Quinn snuggled with her girlfriend while they finished watching the remainder of the documentary. The smile left her face when she sighed and looked up at her girlfriend, now fully engrossed in whatever was on the screen. All of the people dancing at Woodstock had aged. The generation that said they'd never get old was now running banks and retiring. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that everyone around her was going to age, other times she was reminded of it all the time. She was reminded of it when she looked at Rachel. She was reminded of it when Rachel pointed at something in a store window that she wanted for her birthday.

Quinn sighed and pressed a kiss to the underside of Rachel's jaw.

"I love you," Quinn whispered.

"I love you, too."

...

Quinn kicked Puck out of the apartment for Halloween. When Rachel got home from her classes and job at the library that afternoon she was greeted with chocolates, candles, and sparkling cider. The pair ended up tangled in bed and snuggled close together. Rachel had kissed every single scar on Quinn's body, the blonde had noticed. It was as if the brunette girl was trying to heal them or erase the memories that still haunted her.

"Quinn?" Rachel's head was on Quinn's chest, her arm holding tight around the blonde's waist as if she were afraid to let go.

"Yeah baby?"

"If I ask you something will you promise not to be angry with me?"

"I'll try." Quinn knew what was coming. She closed her eyes and tightened her grip on Rachel's shoulder.

"I want to do it."

"Rachel…"

"Please, please just listen to me!"

"We've been over this…"

Rachel pulled away and got out of bed. Quinn groaned as she watched the brunette scramble around for her clothes. She found her shorts and grabbed Quinn's t-shirt.

"Rachel, please-"

"You won't listen to me! I'm not a child, Quinn Fabray! I may not hold the knowledge of the world like you believe you do but I'm not a child. I'm a mature, responsible young adult and this should be my decision."

"You don't know what this is like, Rachel!" Quinn threw the sheets back and started searching for her own shorts and a shirt. Rachel stormed out of the bedroom, Quinn gave up on the clothing search and pulled the sheet off of the bed to wrap herself in. "Get back here!" She stumbled over the sheet a few times as she made her way to the kitchen.

"You think I haven't thought about it?" Rachel opened and then slammed a cabinet door. "Do you honestly think I haven't given it hours, quite possibly even days, of thought? Of what it would be like?" She opened and slammed another cabinet shut. Quinn jumped a little. "I know we've only been together for a year and I know that I'm only eighteen-"

"Seventeen," Quinn mumbled.

"Close enough! I'm old enough and intelligent enough to make my own decisions! I skipped a grade, if you recall me telling you. My intelligence is higher than that of-"

"You skipped kindergarten!"

Rachel slammed yet another cabinet shut and Quinn growled.

"What the hell are you looking for?"

"I don't know!" Rachel shouted, clenching her fists at her sides. "I don't know! I'm just…I'm frustrated! I need to do something! I just…I don't know! I love you! I love you and I want to be with you, why is that so _fucking_ bad? Why, Quinn?"

Quinn shook her head. "Because I don't want you to give up-"

Suddenly, Rachel was nose to nose with Quinn with a look of fury in her eyes that Quinn had never seen.

"I would give up _everything_ for you, Quinn," Rachel hissed. "I love you."

"And that's why I can't-"

Rachel let out a loud, frustrated growl and went back to the kitchen and started pacing. "Do you remember what you told me this summer? On our way to Virginia?"

Quinn winced.

"Do you remember, Quinn? You told me that you would've given Rebekah the choice as to whether or not she wished to become immortal when you believed she was old enough. Do you remember that conversation?"

Quinn nodded and wrapped her arms around her body.

"Why then, Quinn, can I not be afforded the same luxury of choosing for myself whether I live forever or die? Why can I not choose what I wish to give up in order to spend eternity with you like you would've let her?"

Quinn had no answer. She felt a few tears slip out of her eyes as Rachel stopped pacing and stared up at her.

"You may have a good hundred and fifty years on me but that doesn't mean I'm incapable of making intelligent and informed decisions. I'm not a moron."

"You're not," Quinn whispered. "You're not a moron but-"

"'But' nothing, Quinn. I want to make the decision on my own. That's all I'm asking you for is to let the decision lie with me. " Rachel clenched her jaw shut, Quinn could see the muscles twitching. "Until you grant me that then I believe it would be wise for you to find somewhere else to sleep."

"You do realize the only other place to sleep in this apartment is on the couch with Puck?"

Rachel shrugged. "Do what you like."

...

**November 3, 2012  
New York, New York**

Quinn hopped up on a bar stool and stretched her neck a little, the bartender slid her a shot and she smiled appreciatively at him. It had been a long night. Rachel was working late and even though the diva still wasn't speaking to the blonde, Quinn didn't want to go home to an empty apartment so she killed a few minutes by shooting the breeze with the bartender. He left after a few minutes, leaving the blonde to close up. Before the blonde could move to the main door to lock it, it opened. A nervous looking young man stepped inside.

"We're closed," Quinn said. "Sorry buddy."

The man didn't say anything, just pulled out a gun and aimed it at her.

"Open the register," he said. He shook his weapon insistently. "Open it!"

"Kiss my ass," the blonde spat.

"You open it or I shoot you and then I open it."

Quinn smirked. "Go ahead."

The man fired, Quinn felt the momentary searing pain in her shoulder but she remained stoic. He fired a second and third time, the shots hit her square in the chest.

"Are you done now?" the blonde inquired.

The man stood where he was, absolutely stunned. Quinn reached behind the bar and pressed the alarm button and grabbed the pistol residing there. The man dropped his weapon and gaped at her. Quinn felt the bullets push themselves out of her skin and she pulled them out and they hit the floor, the criminal still standing dumbfounded.

Within minutes the police were there and Quinn answered their questions until one of them noticed the small red spots on her white work shirt where the blood had oozed out a little. Another pointed out the three empty casings on the ground as well as three bloody bullets.

"You were shot?" the female cop said, her eyebrow arched.

Quinn blinked and found herself nodding. "I'm fine."

"You…were shot…three times."

Quinn wrung her hands. She hadn't been thinking about the aftermath when she stood up to the almost-felon.

"I've given my statement, can I go?"

"You should have the paramedics…"

"I told you, I'm fine."

"Stay right here," the woman said.

Quinn watched nervously as the cop went over to another officer and pointed in her direction, whispering to the man. A third officer joined them and the woman did it again. Quinn's eyes darted to all of the exits but they were all blocked. The third officer walked away from the other pair to an officer that was at the doorway.

"Just a few more minutes," the woman said as she cautiously approached the blonde. "It's protocol to have medical come to the scene."

"I told you…"

"You just…need to stay here."

Quinn's eyes darted to the doors again, all of the officers were looking at her. She waited until the medical team got there and the man escorted her to the ambulance outside, a few officers stood by.

"There's no blood coming from these wounds," the paramedic noted. "Just the stains…"

"Can I please leave?"

"Let me take a look at the wounds…"

Quinn shook her head. "No."

"Ma'am, I really should…"

Quinn shook her head again. One of the officers pulled the paramedic away and whispered to him. The paramedic returned and reached out to touch Quinn's shoulder where one of the stains was. The blonde shrugged away.

"I told you no. I have the right to refuse medical attention!" Quinn jumped off the back of the ambulance and started walking, an officer grabbed her arm before she could take three steps.

"We're not finished questioning you."

"I gave my statement!"

"We need you to come with us," the large man said.

"N-no…"

"Then I'll book you on refusal to cooperate."

Quinn found herself in the back of a police car headed to the station. She was put into an interrogation room and she stared up at the mirror in the room and tried to remain calm. She wasn't sure how long she waited but she knew it was a long damn time. An hour or two at least. Two men in suits came into the room and sat opposite her, one of them handed her a cup of water.

"You're looking quite well for someone who was just shot in the chest three times," one man said. "FBI, in case you're wondering."

"I'm not talking to you," Quinn said, jaw clenched shut.

"We reviewed the security tapes from the bar," the other man said. "You barely flinched when those bullets hit you. Even someone with a Kevlar vest usually at least gets the wind knocked out of them. The man we arrested said he saw you pull the bullets out of your wounds and drop them on the ground. Care to provide an explanation?"

Quinn shook her head.

"We've tried to do a background check based on the records the bar owner gave us," the first man said. "All we have is a name and the cell phone number of a one Mr. Noah Puckerman who is listed as your emergency contact. You want to tell us why there's nothing else?"

Quinn shook her head again, this time with tears in her eyes.

"You do know that because we can't find anything we can assume that you're an illegal citizen and keep you for as long as we like?"

"And there's the matter of the fact that you're alive after tonight's events."

"I want to make a phone call," Quinn finally mumbled.

The two men looked at each other and nodded, one of them gripped onto Quinn's arm and led her out of the room and to a desk. He slid a phone in front of her and Quinn took a deep breath before dialing the number.

"Hello?"

"Puck?"

"Q? Is that you? Where the hell are you calling me from?"

"I'm in trouble."

There was a pause. "What kind of trouble?"

"The bad kind. I'm sitting in a police station. I don't know what to do, Puck. I…I don't know. They're running a background check. I was shot and...there was a witness."

"Fuck. Fuck! Shit! Why didn't you shoot him back!"

"I didn't think about it! What the hell am I supposed to do?" Quinn tried to keep quiet so the nearby officers couldn't hear.

"Which station are you at?"

Quinn looked around the station. "I don't know…it's close to the bar, though. Only a few blocks."

"Okay…just stay calm, alright?"

"I will."

"Just hang in there and don't tell them anything, okay?"

Quinn nodded. "Okay."

The blonde hung up the phone and one of the men in a suit was at her side a moment later, escorting her back to the interrogation room.

"We let you have your phone call," the man said. "Now you get to cooperate. Are you a citizen of this country?"

Quinn swallowed hard but remained silent and still.

"Answer the question!"

More silence.

"How did you survive the gunshot wounds?"

Silence.

"God damn it!" The man slammed his fist down on the table. "Answer me!"

Quinn looked down at her lap.

"You know if your friend is a citizen we can bring him in and throw him in jail for aiding an illegal citizen, right? Or just deport him if he's with you. So you better start talking."

"Fuck you."

Before the man could say anything there was shouting outside the door. Just as he stepped to open it the door burst open, knocking him in the face and causing him to pass out on the floor. Puck slammed the door shut behind him and locked it. Quinn leapt out of her chair and into his arms and he held her as the door rattled. Puck let go to search the man in the suit's pockets and he found a pen. He grabbed a sheet of paper off the desk, glanced up at the two-way mirror momentarily, and stared writing.

_"I'm going to get the shit tasered out of me when I open that door but you have to run. Rachel's waiting with a bag and some cash for you outside. Make a left when you get out of here, she's in the alley. Get to the bus station and just get whatever ticket you can and get the fuck out of here."_

"I can't come back here if I leave." Quinn wrote.

_"I know."_

"Rachel?"

"I lied to her and told her we'd follow you because you would call us when you got to wherever. You can't call her."

"I know." Quinn sniffled.

The door stopped rattling and Puck looked out of the interrogation room through the small door window. There were officers waiting around the door. Quinn grabbed another sheet of paper from the file folder and flipped it over and started writing. When she finished she folded it up and shoved it in her pocket.

"Remember," Puck whispered, glancing back at the two way mirror. "Run."

"I'll miss you," Quinn mumbled. "Be careful, okay?"

Puck nodded. "I'll be fine. Probably see you again soon."

Quinn smiled and hugged him. Puck unlocked the door and took a deep breath, he stepped out first and Quinn bolted, not looking back. She successfully evaded the officers in the police station and got outside. She almost missed the alleyway but skidded and turned just in time. She nearly slammed into Rachel. The short brunette flung her arms around the blonde and sobbed into her shoulder.

"Quinn…are you okay? Wh-what happened?"

"I don't have time…you'll see it all on the news. Right now I have to get out of here, okay?"

"You'll call me? Tell me where you are so I can come find you, right?"

Quinn leaned down and pressed a heated kiss to Rachel's lips. She gripped onto the girl's hips and poured every bit of her heart and soul into the kiss. She felt Rachel's tears streaming and she knew her own were joining them.

"I love you," the blonde said when she pulled away. She pulled the note out of her pocket and put it into Rachel's hand. "Don't open this until I'm gone, promise?"

Rachel nodded. "I love you, too. There's all the money you had saved in an envelope in your bag and Noah put in everything he had on him…I think I got enough clothes for you for a while."

"I have to go. I love you."

Quinn pressed one more kiss to Rachel's lips and looked one last time into dark brown eyes before she turned and started running again.


	5. Chapter 4b

**-Part IV B-**

The backlash was immense. Quinn practically had to live in isolation. It was all over the news that a woman had been shot three times in the chest with no explanation as to how she survived. It was followed up that a young man had survived several rounds of being tasered as well as six gunshot wounds to the back but still managed to stumble out of the police station. The backlash was such that even in towns that had less than two hundred people in them Quinn couldn't shake the feeling that she was being stared at. She had to resort to stealing what she needed because she couldn't get a job and ran out of money.

She and Puck found each other again a few months later. Quinn had made it up into Canada and was trying to remain as anonymous as possible. She ran into him just outside of the church where she'd been sneaking in and sleeping in the attic. They stuck together for quite a while as they moved around from town to town to avoid being spotted. He was a good con artist and got them what they needed to survive.

Rachel never left Quinn's mind. It was the first thing she asked Puck about when she saw him. He told her that he had done what the letter asked but he never found out the detailed aftermath. He had stayed for a couple of days to make sure Rachel would be alright. The brunette's fathers had come after she'd called them; they thought she was delusional until Puck proved to them that she was telling the truth. He left while they were still there so Rachel wouldn't have to be alone.

Whenever she got the chance, Quinn would find an internet café and scour the web to check the heat on their trail. She also punched Rachel's name into Google every single time. After a few months she found a little critic's piece in the NYU student paper about Julliard's spring musical and then a few months later there was a tiny piece on a theater-oriented website with Rachel's name mentioned as performing in a minor role for an off-Broadway show. The reviews got a little longer and Rachel's name showed up a little more as appearing in small off-Broadway roles and in leads in the Julliard productions. Suddenly, about a year and a half after Quinn left, Rachel's name stopped appearing. There was nothing. It was like Rachel fell off the face of the Earth.

...

**September 2014  
Lima, Ohio**

Quinn stepped off the bus and gripped her backpack strap. Her eyes darted around the bus station, looking for any sign of anyone that might even look at her strangely. She walked the streets of Lima, it was all surprisingly familiar. She hadn't forgotten how to get where she needed to go. She and Puck had split up again after they got back to the states, wishing each other the best of luck. Puck was going to head back to New York City because he said he'd found that he kind of liked it. Quinn promised to try and find him if she went back there in her pursuit of Rachel.

The blonde decided to start at Rachel's roots in order to find her. It took forever to find a payphone, she had to walk three blocks from the bus station in order to find one. She stepped into the booth and flipped through the phonebook until she found what she was looking for. Quinn dug a quarter out of her pocket, dropped it in, and dialed. It took three rings.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Berry? Alex?" Quinn asked as she swallowed hard.

"Yes? Who is this?"

"It…it's Quinn Fabray."

"Quinn! Sweetie, how are you!"

"I…I'm fine. Listen…I was wondering if you could help me out. I wanted to get in touch with Rachel."

"Are you in Lima, honey? The phone had a Lima area code."

"Yeah."

"Come by the house, sweetheart. We still live in the same place. Do you remember where it is?"

"Of course. Is everything alright?"

"Everything's fine, just come by the house. We'd love to see you!"

Quinn hung up the receiver and stared at the phone. There was a bounce in her step as she exited the phone booth and started walking. Her feet carried her along a familiar path and rows of houses until she reached the one that looked the most familiar. She walked up the sidewalk and took a deep breath before she knocked on the door. Alex answered the door and enveloped her in a huge hug as he pulled her inside. Stan met her at the door and wrapped her in his arms.

"Would you like something to drink?" Alex asked as they walked into the living room.

Quinn shook her head. "Where's Rachel?"

"Why don't you have a seat?"

Both men looked at each other and gestured to the couch. Quinn dropped her bag and sat down, each of the men in recliners to her left.

"She'd called us after you left," Stan started. "She…honey, she told us everything. She was hysterical and upset and hurt. We thought at first she was maybe delusional so we went to the city and she showed us the letter. That young man, Noah, he was there with her. He left the day after we got here but he told us the same story and he showed us…he…well, he _showed_ us."

Quinn nodded. "Yeah, Puck told me."

"Then, about six months ago Rachel called us and said she was on her way home. She wouldn't give an explanation, she wouldn't tell us why. Just that she wanted to come home."

"We knew something had happened," Stan said. "But she wouldn't tell us."

"And?" Quinn choked. "Wh-what happened?"

The sound of the front door unlocking made Quinn jump but the sound of a sweet voice calling out for her Dad and Daddy made her jump even more. She sprang from the couch and stood, staring at the doorway as Rachel stepped inside.

"Daddy, you are not going to believe what one of tho…se…kids…did…Oh my God."

Quinn locked eyes with the brunette standing in the foyer of the house. Quinn shifted nervously and clutched her lower lip between her teeth.

"Hey you," was all the blonde could think of to say. "It's…been a while."

Rachel nodded. "T-two years."

"We'll leave you two to get caught up," Alex said with a smile. He patted Rachel's shoulder on the way out the front door with Stan following close behind.

Rachel stayed in the foyer. "I'm sorry I just…I wasn't expecting to come home and be met with…you."

"Well after what your dads just told me I wasn't really expecting you to walk through the door."

"So you know?"

"They didn't have a chance to say much. I'm so sorry I took so long."

"I understand, Quinn."

"So what now?"

"I'd really, really love to kiss you." Rachel nodded.

"Why are you standing over there, then?"

That was all it took for Rachel to run into the living room. She flung her arms around Quinn's neck and smiled before pressing her lips to the blonde's. Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel's waist and almost lifted the girl off the ground as she kissed her. Tongues dueled and Rachel started trying to pull the pair toward the staircase. Quinn eagerly followed. Lips barely left lips as they ascended the staircase and fell into a bed.

Quinn wasn't sure what time it was when Rachel's hands left her for the final time and the brunette finally snuggled up to her, the pair completely sated.

"I knew you'd come back for me," Rachel whispered. "I knew you would."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

Quinn pulled the brunette closer to her.

"What do we do?" Rachel asked, pressing a kiss to Quinn's neck.

"What do you want to do?"

"I'd like to finish school."

Quinn nodded. "Why did you leave New York?"

The blonde heard Rachel take a deep breath and the brunette grabbed onto Quinn's hand and pulled it to her stomach. Quinn furrowed her eyebrows at something she'd missed, something that wasn't there two years before. She looked down to see her fingers running over a scar about three inches long on Rachel's abdomen. She scooted down Rachel's body and inspected the scar before pressing a kiss to it.

"Tell me," Quinn whispered.

...

**_April 2014  
New York, New York_**

_Rachel sifted through her bag just outside of her apartment building searching for her keys. She didn't see the man coming toward her and she barely saw the flash of silver before she felt a sharp pain in her stomach and her bag and its contents were ripped away from her. She cried out in pain before she hit the pavement. There was faint yelling as someone peered over her and she felt a little cold before everything went black._

_There was beeping and someone calling her name when she awoke. Whatever she was dressed in was stiff and made her skin itch just a little. There was air shooting up her nose and a dull pain in her stomach._

_"Rachel?"_

_Rachel grunted and opened her eyes a little to see an Asian woman standing over her with a clipboard, smiling._

_"How are you feeling, Rachel?"_

_"Pain."_

_"We'll get you something for that in a little bit. Can you tell me where you are?"  
"Hospital?"_

_"Correct. I'm Dr. Sims and you are one very lucky girl."_

_Rachel blinked._

_"The knife nicked an artery, the surgeons barely got to it in time to repair it."  
"The what?" Rachel furrowed her eyebrows._

_"Witnesses say you were stabbed and the man ran off with your things. No one was able to find him that I know of. The police will need to take a statement from you."_

_Rachel nodded._

_"You'll need to stay here for a few days at least, is there anyone you need us to call?"  
Rachel chewed on her lower lip. She knew she should call her dads but instead she shook her head. She didn't want them to worry. She was fine and she could take care of herself, she determined._

_After giving her statement to police and six days of hospital food and getting a clean bill of health, Rachel was released. She replaced all of the things that were in her bag and her landlord graciously had new locks installed on her apartment._

_Seven days and seven sleepless nights later she had a re-check with her primary doctor and he told her she might've been suffering from mild PTSD from the event as characterized by her lack of sleeping due to nightmares. He recommended she find someone to stay with and Rachel could only mumble that she had no one and would be fine._

_Rachel had her stitches removed and still wasn't sleeping. April turned into May and she hadn't attended a class since the night of the stabbing. She was afraid to leave her apartment when it was remotely dark and she wished for Quinn or even Puck to be with her to protect her. Finally, after waking up from yet another nightmare drenched in sweat and crying out for Quinn, she gave up. She packed her bags, sold her furniture, and called her dads._

...

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there, Rachel."

Quinn moved back up Rachel's body and held her close, the brunette's head tucked under the blonde's chin. She could feel Rachel's steady heartbeat against her skin and tears slipped out of her eyes at what she could've come back to Lima to be met with. She could've been met with another headstone of a girl she loved. She choked back a sob and Rachel's grip tightened around her and Quinn felt in her heart that this was how she wanted to spend the foreseeable future. She'd known it when she wrote Rachel the letter in the interrogation room two years before.

"Why didn't you ever touch it?"

"I wanted to be with you," Rachel mumbled against Quinn's chest. "Although I was fairly certain that you would return, I wanted to be sure. I wanted to know you'd never leave me."

"I'm here now."

"I know."

"Did you read the letter?"

Rachel's grip tightened. "Every single day."

The brunette pulled away just for a moment to reach into her nightstand and pull out an envelope. Quinn opened it carefully and pulled out the sheet of paper. She peered down into Rachel's eyes as the brunette recited the words on the paper without ever looking at them.

_Rachel, my love, my everything,_

_You're going to hate me but I'd rather you hate me than be in danger. I'm not going to call you when I get out of here. You won't hear from me for a while. Things are going to get really intense for a long time. I don't know when I'll contact you but I assure you that I'll try to find you again._

_You were right, baby. You were right, it's your decision. When Puck finds you tell him to get into the locked drawer in my nightstand and to give it to you. It's up to you what to do with it but please, please choose wisely. I'll tell you right now that I love you and I do want to be with you, I do and I'll come back for you. But consider what I've told you so many times. Everything has a season. Think about it. Don't do anything on impulse. I love you._

_Forever yours,  
-Quinn_

"I meant it. It's your decision."

"And for that I am very grateful. It's been comforting knowing that you trust me, Quinn."

Rachel took the letter back and tucked it into the envelope with care and returned it to her nightstand. Quinn smiled at the return of warmth as Rachel curled into her again and she savored the moment she'd so desperately wanted for the last two years. She trailed her hands all over bronze skin, soaking up as much of the feel as she possibly could.

"I love you, Rachel."

"I love you, too."

...

**June 2015  
New York, New York**

Quinn smiled at her girlfriend as the pair exited their apartment building and walked down the stairs with their fingers linked. Once outside the blonde gave Rachel a peck goodbye and smacked her backside as the brunette walked away. Rachel shook her head and looked around as she stepped out onto the street to cross while Quinn started walking the other way.

In March they'd moved into as nice a neighborhood as they could afford with Rachel's salary from the role she'd landed in an off-Broadway show for the summer and help from the brunette's dads. Quinn gave piano lessons as much as she could to help supplement the income and with all of the sources they drew in a pretty decent living. Rachel was headed back to Julliard in the fall and had promises of more roles to come after the show she was in closed at the end of the summer.

The blonde saw it before Rachel. The piercing scream that came from her mouth surprised her a little and she took off running. She was too late. She watched in horror as the car collided with her girlfriend sending Rachel up over the roof and rolling off of the vehicle. The driver skidded to a halt and Quinn's feet quickly carried her to Rachel's side.

"I swear," the young man gasped, "I swear I didn't see her…I was…"

"Shut up!" Quinn screeched. "Just call an ambulance!"

The young man nodded and walked off, Quinn took Rachel's hand and looked down at the brunette. Rachel's eyes were open and she was looking up directly into Quinn's eyes with nothing but panic.

"Quinn…"

"I'm here, Rachel."

"Quinn…it hurts…" Rachel choked. "It hurts…"

"I know…I know and we're going to get you to a hospital." Quinn pulled Rachel's hand up and kissed the back of it. "You're going to be fine. Don't move, okay?"

The blonde reached down and pressed two fingertips to the pulse point in Rachel's neck and prayed it stayed pulsating beneath her fingertips. When it began to slow and Rachel's eyelids started drooping she gripped onto the brunette's hand even harder.

"Rachel, stay with me!"

The brunette's eyes opened. "I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…I love you, you know I love you."

"I love you, too. Don't leave me like this, Rachel. Please…hold on, okay?"

"It's really dark," Rachel whispered. "I feel…light."

"No, Rachel, no." Quinn pulled her hand away from Rachel's neck and dug into her backpack. She produced a gold ball that she'd taken to carrying with her everywhere yet again and held it up in front of the brunette's eyes.


	6. Chapter 5

**-Part V-**

_"Rachel, stay with me!"_

_The brunette's eyes opened. "I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…I love you, you know I love you."_

_"I love you, too. Don't leave me like this, Rachel. Please…hold on, okay?"_

_"It's really dark," Rachel whispered. "I feel…light."_

_"No, Rachel, no." Quinn pulled her hand away from Rachel's neck and dug into her backpack. She produced a gold ball and held it up in front of the brunette's eyes._

Rachel blinked.

"Forever, Rachel. Forever, I swear it. Okay? Yes, the answer to your question is yes…people can be in love forever."

Tears welled up in Rachel's eyes and the brunette smiled a little. "Forever," she whispered. "I want you forever."

Rachel let go of Quinn's hand and the blonde nodded. "You'll feel sleepy," she reminded Rachel. "And warm."

Rachel nodded but before she could reach up, her eyes slipped shut and Quinn panicked. She shook Rachel's shoulder and pressed her fingertips against the girl's neck again before she took a deep breath and kissed her forehead. The blonde pushed the ball into the palm of Rachel's hand and wrapped the girl's fingers around it.

"Please work," Quinn mumbled. "Please…please work."

Quinn held her breath and shut her eyes tight until she heard Rachel gasp for air and the brunette almost knocked her over when she sat bolt upright. Rachel looked down at the ball in her hand and back up at Quinn and flung her arms around the blonde's shoulders. Quinn returned the embrace and kissed Rachel's neck.

"I love you," Quinn murmured. "Oh God, Rachel…I…I love you."

"I love you, too," the brunette said with a gasp.

Quinn pulled away and looked at the young man who was pacing frantically with his phone pinned to his ear. She glanced back and forth between Rachel and the young man before standing and walking over to him. He spun around with his eyes wide when she tapped him on the shoulder.

"I'm fucking on hold!" he said. "I can't believe they…"

Quinn grabbed the phone out of his hand and shut it.

"Listen to me…what's your name?"

"Ron."

"Ron, I'm going to give you a hundred dollars in cash here in a second when I grab my bag. What you're going to do is forget this ever happened, okay?"

"Wh-what about…"

"Don't worry about her. I just need you to take the money and forget this."

"O-okay."

Quinn nodded once and patted the young man's shoulder before going over to grab her backpack out of the street. She rifled through her wallet and pulled out a crisp $100 bill and handed it to him. He looked at it then at Quinn and over to Rachel who was now standing in front of his car inspecting the damage.

"How is she…"

"This never happened," Quinn cut him off.

The young man nodded and Quinn handed him his phone and he shakily took it and walked back to his car. Quinn beckoned Rachel out of the street and the pair stood on the sidewalk for a while, the gold ball still clasped in Rachel's fist until she held it out and dropped it in Quinn's hand.

"So…" Rachel breathed. "I don't…feel any different."

"You won't." Quinn looked around at the empty street and clutched her lip between her teeth. She slipped her hand into Rachel's and tugged her back toward their apartment building. Quinn used Rachel's phone to call her next lesson and cancel, Rachel dropped her bag and fell to the couch. Quinn followed.

"What do we do?" Rachel asked, looking down at her hands, the scrapes that had been on her knuckles all gone.

"We…we go on. We do what we have to in order to survive."

"Can I finish school?"

Quinn chewed on her lower lip again.

Rachel sighed. "I'll withdraw my…"

"No." Quinn swallowed hard and took a deep breath. It was time to change strategies. "I'm sick of running, Rachel. If you want to go to Julliard and graduate and go on stage then you should do it. We'll deal with whatever comes. It was easy with just me and Puck. We didn't have huge dreams like you do. Hell, the dreams when we were sixteen were to live passed the age of thirty-five and survive a flu epidemic. You've wanted this since you were born. You once told me you'd give it all up for me. I won't let you."

"You said it could be dangerous…"

"They can't kill us," Quinn said with a shrug. "The last couple years…it was so hard. For the first time we didn't know where we were going to sleep from one night to the next. We squatted in abandoned buildings and slept under bridges…I don't want to do that again. I told myself that things might change when I found you…and I think I'm ready. I wasn't…then. When everything happened and I had to leave. I wasn't ready…but I'm ready now. I'm willing to face whatever comes as long as you're with me."

Rachel launched herself at her girlfriend, knocking her onto her back on the couch. The brunette's lips attached to Quinn's and her hands ran up the blonde's sides.

"I promise I'll make it all worth it, baby," Rachel whispered. "I promise. I'll take care of you, okay? You won't have to worry about anything ever again, I swear."

Quinn groaned and dug her fingernails into Rachel's back through her shirt. When Rachel's fingernails ran down her bare stomach she figured this wasn't going to be a bad way to spend eternity.

...

Quinn found another job to go along with giving piano lessons. Another hole-in-the-wall bar where the manager didn't give a shit if she was legal or not. He was an irritable old bastard but the pay was okay and it was cash under the table because he was also cheap. The one thing she didn't expect when she took the job was the man behind the bar on her first day of work.

"Puck!" Quinn squealed when she stepped out of the break room to start work.

"Q!"

Puck enveloped her in a huge bear hug and the blonde grinned at the familiar arms around her.

"Keep it in your pants!" the owner barked from his spot in a booth where he was going through his receipts.

"Shut it, old man!" Puck barked back. "How long have you been here?" he asked when he released the blonde from his grip.

"Since March. I found Rachel in Lima, she left the city but we came back together. It's a long story, I'll tell you later. You should come by our place sometime."

"Sweet. I pretty much live in a closet in the back and work for that and whatever leftover food we have at the end of the night."

"We actually have a second bedroom. There's a bunch of stuff in it right now but I'll talk to Rachel if you want."

"I'd so owe you. I know I'm a dude but seriously, there are some smells even I can't handle. That closet is one of them. Pretty sure any normal human would be dead by now."

"I'm not paying you two to stand there and fucking gossip!"

"You're not paying me anything, you cheap bastard!" Puck yelled.

"Back to the bar, Puckerman!"

"I'll talk to you after we close, okay?" Quinn smiled and hugged Puck again and grabbed her tray to run off to get the first customers of the evening.

Within a week Puck was moved into the spare bedroom. Rachel burned all of his clothes because no matter what they did they couldn't get the smell out of them. Puck retaliated by walking around naked for a day because Rachel hadn't given him any time to get new clothes. Quinn turned the air conditioning up as high as it would go to the point that she and Rachel had to put on extra layers. Puck finally gave up and fashioned a bedsheet to look like a toga until Quinn went out and bought him new clothes.

...

"So I was thinking," Puck said, dropping to the floor for movie night. He tossed a bowl of popcorn onto the coffee table and picked out _Armageddon_ since it was his week to pick the movie.

"No, Puck."

"Absolutely not, Noah."

"Fuck you guys. You don't even know what I was going to say."

"We're still not having a threesome," Quinn said, grabbing the popcorn bowl from the coffee table.

Puck growled and grabbed the remote. "No fuckin' fun at all," he mumbled.

Quinn and Rachel each threw a handful of popcorn at him.

...

**August 2015  
New York, New York**

Puck aligned the bottles of liquor on the shelves behind him while Quinn wiped down the bar and stools after the last customers had finally stumbled out of the bar. They'd had a pretty good night, they brought in a lot of tips. Their boss had left earlier that night because his wife, who was apparently more of a bitch than he was an ass, had demanded he be home for dinner once and not "spending time in that waste of space you call a bar" (Quinn and Puck had heard the old woman yell at her husband more than once when she came to the bar just to bitch at him). He left the pair to clean up and shut everything down.  
Puck poured a couple of shots out after Quinn took off her apron and tossed it on the bar. It was as clean as it was going to get and it wasn't like the old man cared unless the health inspector was coming by. She gladly took the shot of whatever Puck had poured and was getting ready to knock back another when the door opened and an old man, even older looking than their ancient boss, stepped inside.

"We're closed," Puck said.

The old man moved a little closer and Quinn recognized him as a man she'd seen in the bar almost every night for the last two weeks. He never said anything, just settled himself at a table and drank cranberry juice and had some food. He'd watched her incredibly close after one night she dropped a wine glass and sliced herself open picking up the shards. She'd glanced around and tried to cover her hand to let it heal but something in the old man's gaze had told her that he knew something.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Quinn said with a smile, trying to be polite as possible. The old man always left her a good tip, after all.

The old man took off his hat and set it on the bar. He took a deep breath and shook his head. Quinn watched as he put his hand in his pocket and pulled something out and set it on the bar. The blonde's eyes traveled to the object and she furrowed her eyebrows. On the bar was a small glowing silver ball.

"I bet," the old man wheezed, "that you have one of those in gold."

"H-how did you…" Quinn stammered as she looked at the ball and back to the old man.

"It's amazing how things travel. Where they end up. I figured you two shared the secret. You're close."

Puck knocked back his second shot and stared down at the silver ball. Quinn caught his gaze for a second.

"Where did they come from?" Puck asked. Quinn could see his fingers twitching to reach out and touch it.

The old man chuckled. "That, I'm not sure of. I found them at a little market, the owner wasn't sure where they'd come from, either. I thought maybe my wife would like them, something a little decorative that don't serve much of a purpose. What I do know is that I dropped the other long ago. I was an oil worker in…"

"Titusville, Pennsylvania," Quinn finished.

"Yes ma'am. Had a hole in my pocket, I suspect. I never meant to touch this one until I found its brother but somewhere around fifty years ago it slipped out of its box and I grabbed it."

"And…you aged."

The man nodded. "Was long about twenty-two when I first got them. Spent quite a few years playing with them back and forth once I figured their purpose."

Quinn nodded.

"Woulda destroyed them," he sighed.

"But you couldn't," Puck said. "They don't melt, they float even if you weigh them down…"

"And they come right back up to the surface if you try and bury them."

"What do you want for it? Do you want the other one?" Puck crossed his arms over his chest and stared down the old man. Quinn reached across the bar and poked his shoulder, telling him to back off.

The old man chuckled. "No, no, sir. I don't want anything from you. I've lived my life, longer than you've lived. I saw Washington cross the Delaware and America become what it has. My life will come to a close soon and I'm ready for it. You've got a decision to make, though. I'll be leaving you to your thoughts." He grabbed his hat, the silver ball stayed on the bar.

Quinn was too stunned to say anything, she just listened to the bell on the bar door jingle as the man left. She grabbed her discarded apron and picked up the silver ball with it, taking extra care to not touch it with her bare skin. Puck grabbed the two shot glasses and tossed them in the sink then jumped over the bar and locked up the front doors. The pair darted out the back door and to their apartment, running as fast as they could.

The blonde found Rachel in their bedroom changing into her pajamas when she burst through the door with the silver ball still clutched in her hand.

"Hey beautiful," Rachel yawned. "How was your shift?"

"We need to talk."

"Do we have to talk now, sweetheart? I'm certain I'm on the brink of exhaustion. The librarian had me stacking the encyclopedias. I don't think she likes me."

"It can't wait."

Quinn grabbed onto Rachel's arm and tugged her into the living room where Puck was sitting on the couch with his head in his hands staring at the coffee table. Quinn dropped next to him, Rachel on her other side.

"I can't believe this," Puck mumbled. "Like it's just that fuckin' simple."

"What's going on? Did something happen?"

Quinn nodded at Rachel's questions and loosened her death grip on her apron and carefully put it on the coffee table. She pulled the fabric away to reveal the silver ball, glowing just as the gold did. There it was. Her escape. _Their_ escape.

"Is that…"

"The solution," Quinn mumbled.

"Well this just isn't fair!" Rachel shrieked. "I've been immortal all of two months and you find the way out? I have yet to witness anything of historical significance or get shot and survive!"

"You want to get shot I'll find someone," Puck mumbled.

"Shut it, Puck."

Quinn stared at the silver ball; Puck's almost depression radiating from her right and Rachel's anger at not having gotten to really experience immortality seeping out from her left. She'd once told Rachel she'd jump at the chance to get rid of the immortality in a heartbeat. She remembered that conversation very, very clearly. But now, presented with the actual option, she was hesitant. For some reason, anything less than eternity with Rachel didn't seem long enough. For the first time in her existence, Quinn was afraid of dying.

"Quinn? Baby?"

"I don't know what to do," Quinn sighed.

"You said…"

Quinn, still in shock and disbelief stormed to the kitchen where she paced, arms crossed over her chest. Rachel, as expected, followed and attempted to calm her down but there was no calming.

"Damn what I said, Rachel! Damn all of it! I love you…I love you and I…I'm scared. I'm scared because this is all I've known for so long and now you're in the picture and you _are_ the picture. I never thought we'd find a way out…I never thought I could end it and so the decision was easy. It was easy when I thought I'd be breaking up with you…"

"You were going to break up with me?"

"Before you graduated from McKinley," Quinn mumbled. "But you're like…this…I don't know. I didn't do it because I didn't want to. That's not the point, Rachel!"

"You were going to break up with me!"

"A long time ago! I changed my mind, though, didn't I? I'm still here and I came back for you when I had to leave! I'm here and I'm not going anywhere now can we please focus on the issue at hand?"

Rachel growled. "Alright. What's the issue?"

"The issue is that I don't know what the hell to do. I'm so fucking confused right now…I want to but I don't!"

"So don't do anything," Rachel said with a shrug. "It's a fairly simple concept. Don't do anything until you've made a solid decision. Is the reversal permanent? If you were to touch the gold one again would you return to being immortal?"

Quinn nodded. "The man said he spent years playing with them, switching it on and off."

"Well then if you ever change your mind one way or the other you can simply go back. It's simple logic, Quinn."

"What about you?"

"As the only person here who has had an actual near-death experience I think I deserve at least a few more years of immortality. I feel a little safer, to be honest. And if you were to decide to become mortal again then you'd catch up to me in age, since you'd move on from eighteen, and I'd feel less like one of those slightly creepy college students who date high school age people. Although numerically speaking you're much older than I am, the age difference would've shown eventually had I not been thrust into a situation where I chose immortality over immediate death. I must admit I was a little apprehensive about that. I'm not sure many people would've accepted a fifty-year-old dating a girl who looked like a teen."

"So…"

"In a nutshell, since you have obviously learned how to tune out my voice," Rachel sighed, "I shall remain as I am for the time being."

"Wonderful," Puck mumbled as he walked through the kitchen.

"Puck, Rachel and I were…"

"Yeah, I heard all of it."

Puck grabbed a kitchen knife out of the holder and Quinn furrowed her eyebrows as she saw it shake in his hands. He lifted up the leg of his jeans and Rachel shrieked. Puck pressed the blade of the knife against his calf and yelled as he dragged it over his skin. He dropped the crimson tinged knife into the sink and the three of them watched the blood pour out of his leg. Quinn finally took action and grabbed a towel to press against the wound when the bleeding didn't stop and the cut didn't close.

"You idiot," Quinn hissed.

"I had to know," he mumbled.

"Well…now you know. Now _we_ know."

Puck shrugged and winced when Quinn pressed even harder on his leg.

"What's it feel like?"

"Hurts like a bitch," he said.

Quinn quirked an eyebrow.

"Oh, the other thing. Feels just like it did with the other one. Warm and tired."

"That's it?"

Puck nodded. "Yeah. Ow! Careful!"

"You pushed deep, you moron, I have to keep pressure on it. Rachel, grab a chair so the idiot can sit down."

Quinn nursed Puck's wound and finally got the bleeding to stop. Because Rachel was Rachel they still had a first aid kit around and she dressed the wound and mumbled that it could probably use stitches but Puck turned pale at the mention so the blonde just did the best she could with medical tape and gauze.

The silver ball joined its brother in a box and was returned to Quinn's nightstand. The blonde would stare at it every night after she thought Rachel had fallen asleep. She would think about the last four years and the girl snuggled up to her and how much her existence had changed since she met Rachel.

She was honestly beginning to wonder if she really would've done it had the option presented itself before Rachel. She thought maybe she'd have done what the old man did, go back and forth. She just wasn't sure. One thing Quinn did know for sure was that she'd never felt about anyone like she felt about Rachel. Rachel was literally a once in a lifetime experience. But that was just it. She wondered if perhaps once in a lifetime experiences are meant to be just that. Once in a lifetime. Not once in an existence. She tilted her head down and pressed a kiss to Rachel's forehead.

Quinn took a deep breath as she reached over to her nightstand and tugged the drawer open. The small box stared back at her as she looked down at it. She opened it and the glow from the two balls illuminated the room just a little. Quinn's fingers hesitated over the silver one until Rachel shifted and groaned.

"Baby, wha's wrong?" the brunette mumbled. "What're you doing?"

"It's time."

"Time for what? Sex? Mkay…"

Rachel pressed a few kisses to Quinn's collarbone, almost making the blonde forget her goal but the glow from her nightstand made her shake her head and nudge Rachel away. The brunette sat up a little and gasped as Quinn reached back into the drawer.

"Quinn, are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

Quinn picked up the silver ball and clenched it in her fist. Puck was right, it was the exact same feeling she'd had when she first touched the gold one. Once the feeling of warmth disappeared she dropped it back into her nightstand and shut the drawer. She could see through the faint light coming in through the window that Rachel was smirking at her.

"What's that look for?"

"Your hickeys won't go away now."

Quinn was in the middle of her eyeroll when Rachel's teeth latched onto her neck.

...

Not much changed, Quinn noticed. It hurt a little more when she ran into things and she had to be extra careful not to cut herself when she was preparing dinner or cleaning up glass shards at the bar from when someone knocked over their glass. She found it a little funny that now the roles were reversed from where they had been when she and Rachel met.

Rachel left Julliard again when her roles in shows started getting bigger. She found out she landed her first Broadway role on what they had deemed Quinn's 19th birthday, July 14th from what the blonde could remember. She still had a year to go before Rachel would consent to giving up her immortality because of her insistence that the pair be the same age when she give it up to start "living instead of existing", as Quinn put it.

One thing that did change was Puck. He was a little more fearful and a little more cautious and definitely a lot quieter. She'd watch him at the bar and at home and mostly he would be staring off into space deep in thought. No matter what she tried to get him to talk to her, he wouldn't. He'd just mumble something of an apology and find something to fix around the apartment.

Then, just like that, he was gone. Quinn woke up one morning to Rachel calling her for breakfast. She poked her head into his bedroom and there was nothing. His bed was made but his dresser drawers were pulled out and empty. Quinn went back across the hall and her eyes darted to her nightstand. The drawer was ajar just a little and she opened it to see the gold ball out of its box and rolling around freely. She ran to the kitchen and looked around the room. There was no letter, no explanation. Just the absence of the third of their trio.

"I don't think he's coming back," Quinn mumbled over her pancakes.

"Hey." Rachel slipped her hand over Quinn's and squeezed. "We'll be okay."

Quinn smiled and pulled Rachel's hand up to kiss the back of it. "I know we will be."

"Whether it's forever or not…we'll be fine. You know I'll always love you."

"I love you, Rachel."

The blonde's heart fluttered at Rachel's bright smile and she leaned into an embrace with her lover and reveled in the warmth that Rachel offered. She didn't know what the future would hold, she never did. All she knew is that at least she wouldn't be alone in it like she thought she would be.

...

Epilogue

**March 2084  
Lima, Ohio**

The cold breeze was enough to chill a person to the bone. It didn't stop a young man from walking through the cemetery with two bunches of store-bought daisies to kneel in front of one large headstone and put the flowers down. He gripped the grey rock as he knelt down and shook his head.

"I can't believe I'm more of a coward than you guys," Puck mumbled. "And I can't believe you had them put your actual birthdate on there, Q. You're crazy." Puck traced his fingers over the matching numbers for the date of death, only about nine months before. "How the hell did you manage…"

"Excuse me?" a voice came from behind him.

Puck stood and turned to see an older woman standing with two single stemmed pink roses in her hand. She looked at him curiously, studying his face before she gasped.

"Noah?"

Puck nodded. "Yeah. Do I know you?"

"No," the woman shook her head. "My name is Katherine. Fabray-Berry is my maiden name. Rachel and Quinn…they were my mothers. They talked about you all the time. I've seen pictures. I never thought I'd meet you. They always said they had no idea what happened to you." Katherine placed the two roses next to the daisies and motioned to a nearby bench. Puck sat down and stared at the brown grass at his feet.

"I figured they had each other," Puck said. "They didn't need me sticking around while they tried to start their lives, you know?"

"Mom…Quinn…she always figured it was something along those lines. She said you never really told them."

"Like I said, they didn't need me sticking around."

"Momma…Rachel, had me," Katherine said. "About five years after you left. They traveled for a while to all the places Mom remembered and had been to. Momma said she loved it but what she really wanted more than anything was a family. It was difficult getting the paperwork filled out but eventually they got around it. I've got a younger sister and a younger brother. Sarah and Noah."

Puck chuckled.

"That was Mom's doing, she said she wanted to name him after the only other boy she ever loved. Sarah and Noah stayed in New York, I moved to Lima after college. I always liked it better than the city. I raised my family here, three sons and a daughter. They're all grown now and have children of their own," Katherine smiled. "Mom and Momma moved back after Momma retired from the stage. They were lucky to get to see all of their grandchildren before they died."

"How the hell did they manage to die at the same time?"

Katherine shrugged. "They lived in an assisted living facility and their caretaker came in that morning and found them. They'd both died in their sleep, most likely. I guess it was fitting. Mom always said that Momma was a once in a lifetime experience for her."

"Rachel would've wanted a movie of it made. Girl was damn dramatic."

"She tried for a while to get them to do a biopic. It never worked out because she could never agree with what actress they wanted to play her."

Puck snorted. "Figures."

"I have them," Katherine said. Puck didn't need to inquire as to what she was talking about. "They're yours if you'd like."

"That'd be cool."

...

Puck walked through the streets of Lima with the addition of a box containing the gold and silver balls in his backpack and a piece of paper with the contact information of Quinn and Rachel's other children along with a promise that he'd keep in touch with Katherine and her family.

He'd stayed for dinner and Katherine had her children and their children over. They shared stories of memories of various points in Rachel and Quinn's lives as well as how a few of them had chosen to take immortality for a few years but always went back after Quinn talked to them about it.

Katherine's oldest grand-daughter, an eighteen year-old blonde named Cassie, flirted shamelessly with him and slipped him her number and e-mail address right before he left. He had to admit that he did feel a little drawn to her. Katherine had arched her eyebrow in a way that Quinn would be proud of when he left and he turned back to give Cassie a little wave.

He found himself at Lima Park and he sat on a bench to look out over the pond and he thought about how his life ended up here, right back where one of the biggest adventures had started. Quinn had changed his life and then Rachel came along and completely turned his world upside down. He'd loved Quinn and cared about Rachel, enough to let them live their lives and from what he'd heard they had lived life to the fullest and never let anything stop them.

"Hey," a soft voice came from next to him. "It's cold out, I brought you a coffee."

Cassie dropped down to the bench and handed Puck a steaming cup of Starbucks and sipped her own.

"You follow me?"

Cassie smiled. "Maybe."

"Your grandma wouldn't be happy about that."

"Grandma was the one that gave me money for the coffee. Great-Grandma Rachel always told everyone that we'd get along because we're so much alike."

"Yeah?" Puck frowned a little when Cassie shivered and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders to pull her in a little.

"Yeah. I'm kind of a troublemaker."

"You want to talk about it at dinner tomorrow night?"

The blonde girl grinned and nodded. "I'd love to."

Puck continued sipping his coffee, occasionally glancing to the blonde on his left and wondering if maybe this was it for him. He'd never admit any of his thoughts out loud because it would destroy his need to be somewhat of a badass but he wondered if maybe the turning point for Quinn had been finding Rachel and knowing that they could be in love forever but they wanted a steady life together.

He hadn't really been ready to settle down with Quinn when they were teens, no matter how much he begged her for it. It was out of a sense of responsibility more than anything although he had loved her but it wasn't a love like Quinn had found with the short brunette. It had been taking care of each other, looking out for each other. But as he sat in Lima, Ohio, the place that changed his entire world, he thought maybe another change was coming. Only time would tell.

* * *

The end! Thanks for reading, I appreciate it!

(Please do not ask me for a sequel. Really, don't ask. It's not happening.)


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